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roanofarcc · 2 years

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PROJECT SUNSHINE CHAPTER EIGHT → A BLINDING LIGHT

summary: steve harrington x oc

when another product of Hawkins National Laboratory escaped a long-survived nightmare alongside her sister, she crashed into one unsuspecting teenage boy and dragged him deeper into the dark mysteries that made up their hometown.

word count. 4.3k

warnings: cannon typical violence, child-abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness. parts of this story were written pre-season 4 release. slight canon divergence.

a/n: I hope you guys are enjoying this story! Feedback is always appreciated <3

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Two beams of light illuminated the path through the woods. They created long shadows along the ground of three figures and made it easier to step over the fallen branches and avoid the piles of rotting leaves.

Sunshine held her arms folded tightly across her chest as she concentrated on their surroundings, expecting to see something terrible roaming right alongside them. She knew she should’ve paid a bit more mind to the strangers who she walked with, but the possibility of what or who lingered in the woods was a more pressing issue in her mind. She focused on the silence, listening for any breaks in it in the form of growls or footsteps.

However, the first break came from the girl beside her.

“Why were you at Steve’s?” Nancy asked, glancing to the side at Sunshine’s profile. “I mean, how do you know him if you’re not a family friend?”

“I don’t know him.” She still didn’t know why Steve lied to his friends. At first, he pretended to know her to get her away from the man at the convenience store, but after that, he had no real reason to lie for her. Nevertheless, he did.

Sunshine hoped that the men from the Lab didn’t uncover that he helped her. At least with her gone from his home, he stood a better chance at getting off without the wrath of Dr. Brenner. Maybe he’d play it off just right and paint Sunshine out to be the kind of monster the Lab liked to paint her as. Then Steve would be in their good graces, and nothing would happen to him. She just hoped he didn’t lie for her again, or she hoped he lied well enough not to get caught in it by the Lab.

“Right,” Nancy muttered. “Then how did you end up at his house?”

“I was hiding.”

“Hiding from the thing in the woods?” Jonathan asked.

Sunshine shook her head. “No. Hiding from…from someone. Bad people.”

“Bad people?” Nancy repeated, her voice laced with confusion. “What are you-”

“Shh,” Jonathan said suddenly, stopping in his tracks. The two girls followed his lead, shooting him curious glances. “Do you hear that?”

They stayed still and as quiet as they could. Sunshine could feel her heartbeat rattle inside her chest, but she tried to focus on external noises.

Both Jonathan and Nancy shined their lights around the immediate area they stood in until they could the source of the noise.

A quiet yet pained cry rang out as an injured animal came into view. It was bloodied and its legs mangled underneath it, making it unable to stand or run away. The deer whimpered in pain, and it filled the air with a metallic scent that made Sunshine's stomach roll uncomfortably.

She wasn’t the only one nauseated by the poor state of the animal. Beside Sunshine, Nancy whispered, “Oh, God.” Her chin trembled and one hand came out over her mouth. “It’s been hit by a car. We can’t leave it.”

Neither Jonathan nor Sunshine objected to that, but no one moved except for Nancy. She raised her gun with trembling hands and bit down hard on her lower lip.

Sunshine closed her eyes in anticipation of the shot, but it didn’t come. Nancy let out a heavy breath before she dropped her hands and closed her eyes like she was trying to work herself up to pulling the trigger.

Something about her hesitation to kill a half-dead animal eased a little of Sunshine’s fear of the weapon and the girl. She was used to being surrounded by people who had no hesitation when it came to hurting someone or something else, adults and children alike. Of course, with the children, it was a means of survival, not a move to demonstrate power. Nevertheless, it was hard to stomach violence of any kind, even when she was the one committing it; it wasn’t in her nature.

It didn’t seem to be in Nancy’s either.

“I’ll do it,” Jonathan said, reaching for the gun. He carefully took it from Nancy’s hand, though, his too trembled when the weapon was in his grasp.

“I thought you said-” Nancy started, but he stopped her by aiming the gun at the deer.

“I’m not nine anymore.” There was an edge to his voice, one that sounded more pained than out of anger, leftover from a conversation Sunshine must have missed.

Sunshine watched as he fingered the trigger before she closed her eyes once more. Her fingernails dug into the center of her palm, waiting.

But once again, no shot was fired.

Instead, a loud growl cracked across the air like lightning, startling the group. Just as Sunshine re-opened her eyes, the deer was forcefully dragged out of their sight and into the darkness.

All three teens let out a series of gasps and short screams before they stumbled backward, away from where the animal just was. All that was left was soaked dirt and leaves with blood.

Reflexively, Sunshine’s hands shot out in front of her, ready to use her abilities if something emerged from where the deer was dragged away.

“W-What happened?” she sputtered out, looking all around them.

Nancy heaved out frantically, “Where did it do? Where is it!?”

“I don’t know.” Jonathan kept his flashlight pointed in the direction the growl came from and started following the trail of blood left behind by the deer. It moved around a cluster of trees, staining the ground until the trail suddenly stopped cold. There weren’t so much as drops to indicate where the animal was dragged to; it was gone, vanished into thin air.

“Do you see any more blood?” Jonathan asked with his voice wavering in fear.

The girls both shook their heads, and after a moment of quiet contemplation, they split up and searched the small area where the trees broke up a little.

Sunshine stayed close to Nancy, keeping her within arm's length. They stomped through the tension-filled air, looking with a single ray of light and expanding darkness.

Her heart raced wildly inside her chest and nervousness gripped her with a cold hand. The growl sounded familiar; it was reminiscent of the one she heard a couple of nights ago when she escaped. They were treading in a monster’s territory, and Sunshine felt the bad decision wrap its way around her. None of them had fully seen the creature they were after; they were at an outstanding disadvantage, even with Sunshine's abilities that the other two had no clue she was hiding.

The events that led her to that moment caught up with her all at once. Her feet ached and her ad hurt. Fatigue and hunger gnawed at her entire body. It was enough to stop her from walking. She let out a quiet sigh and brushed two nearly numb hands down the length of her face.

Her gaze drifted over to Nancy, who sat on her knees at the base of a tree. Furrowing her brows, Sunshine watched as she poked a finger into an odd film that covered an illuminated hole at the base. Nancy’s finger fell right through the film, swallowing her hand entirely. When she pulled it out, strings of some liquid-y substance clung to her hand.

Kneeling beside Nancy, Sunshine stared at the hole. It pulsed like a heartbeat.

While she knew very little about nature, she could judge by the look on Nancy's face that what they were seeing was out of the ordinary.

With a shaky breath, Nancy lifted her slimy hand and pushed past the film again. In a low, voice, she said, “I think there’s something on the other side.”

They both stared at it, unsure if they were thinking the same thing. Sunshine repeated what Nancy had done, sticking her hand through the hole. The film broke with a disgusting squelching sound. Leaving her hand in for a moment, something did feel different. There was a breeze that touched her hand; it felt unnatural.

“You want to…to see what’s on the other side?”

Nancy hesitated before she nodded, pieces of her ponytails falling against her face. She brushed them away with her non-slimy hand and positioned herself fully in front of the hole. Sunshine watched as the teen pushed her hand through until the film encased her entire arm. They shared one last look before Nancy held her breath and crawled through.

Once her foot disappeared there was nothing left of Nancy. Sunshine swallowed down the fear that bubbled in her throat and followed the stranger.

Slime clung to her body; it was a terrible feeling. She was engulfed in darkness as she crawled, and the second she touched the other side, goosebumps erupted on her skin from a sudden drop in temperature. Despite the darkness, Sunshine continued to crawl and hoped she didn’t follow Nancy to her ultimate doom.

Cold fingers wrapped around her wrist and tugged on it harshly. Sunshine landed on the ground with a thud and a groan.

The fingers slipped down from her wrist and grasped her hand. Nancy helped Sunshine to her feet, but she didn’t let go.

Looking around at their new surroundings, they looked to still be in the woods, but it felt different. Trees still towered overhead, but the darkness of the night was more menacing, somehow. There wasn’t a single star or sliver of moonlight that peak out behind the clouds. There was no light at all; everything was drenched in darkness that made Sunshine’s skin crawl. In the air floated particles that resembled ash, and the whole place smelled rotten.

It all reeked of darkness and death. It was unlike anything she had saw or felt before. Each breath she inhaled caused her lungs to scream. Each tree and plant looked more dead than they had a moment ago. There were no leaves on the branches that hung on for dear life or fallen, colorful ones that littered the ground. There were no leaves at all. Instead, along the ground were black vine-looking plants.

They were somewhere else. Sunshine didn’t know where, though.

“Where…” Nancy trailed off, scanning the area before her movements halted and her entire body tensed up. She was still holding Sunshine’s hand, but her grip became tighter and her eyes impossibly wide.

Following her line of sight, Sunshine saw was caused Nancy to freeze up. Between the trees, off in the distance was a figure. Not just any figure, but the very thing Nancy and Jonathan had set out to find and Sunshine had tried to avoid during her stay in the woods.

The creature was hunched over the ripped-apart carcass of a deer. Its teeth sunk into the animal’s flesh, tearing into it with both its mouth and its hands. The monster looked slick with a similar slime that coated the girls’ clothing and skin. Its skin glistened even in the absence of light, making it look all that more horrifying.

The sight invoked a different kind of horror than what Sunshine had grown accustomed to. There was a startling difference between monsters in the human form and monsters in, well, monster form. Her palms were slick with sweat and her heart raced so quickly she feared it would crack her chest in half.

It was Nancy who snapped out of the daze first. She tugged on Sunshine’s hand and started to pull her in the opposite direction of where the creature was feasting. Quickly, they began to move away from the monster. They managed to get a few feet away before Nancy’s boot got hooked on one of the vines and crunched loud enough for the creature to hear.

Whipping its faceless head around, the monster peeled back its flower-petal-shaped mouth and flashed rows and rows of bloodstained teeth as it roared. It stood up, showing the girls just how tall it was before it charged toward them.

Sunshine and Nancy let out matching screams as they scrambled to get as far away from the monster as they could. Neither one had any clue as to where they were running to, but they weaved between the dead trees in hope of losing the monster.

Hand in hand, in a fit of labored breaths, the girls desperately tried to find an exit, but the monster was fast, and it gained on them quickly.

“Jonathan! Jonathan, where are you?” Nancy cried, tightening her grip on Sunshine’s hand to the point where it was painful, but Sunshine was too petrified to let go.

“Nancy?” Jonathan’s voice yelled back. It sounded both close and distant at the same time like he was right in front of them but nowhere to be seen.

Their eyes were so focused on looking for the hole they had crawled through in the first place, they hadn’t noticed the way the vines along the ground slithered and moved toward them. One of them rose off the ground and wrapped around Sunshine’s ankle, forcing her to the ground with a scream.

She dragged Nancy down with her. They both landed on the ground with a pained groan.

The monster sprinted closer as Sunshine tried to shake the vine from where it attached itself around her ankle. Breaking free from Nancy’s grasp. Sunshine reached down and sunk her fingernails into the vines, trying to pry it off of her. With a frightened cry, Nancy crawled beside her and tried to help too, but the monster was nearly to them, and the fear was debilitating.

Tears pricked the corners of Sunshine's eyes as the monster roared and Nancy screamed out. The ear-splitting noise was enough to jolt Sunshine’s instincts. She gritted her teeth and grabbed a hold of Nancy’s arm, all but dragging the girl behind her.

Inside the Lab, fear made you look weak and if you looked weak, every move you made was scrutinized by the doctors and judged to see if you were even capable of doing what they wanted. Sunshine learned to shove all of her fear into a little box in the far back corner of her mind, locking it away from any prying eyes. Nearly face-to-face with the monster, she did the same thing.

She mustered up all of the remaining strength inside her and extended her arms outward with her fingers flexed. Her eyes screwed shut for a beat as a familiar buzz started in the back of her head, moved down her spine, over her shoulders, and into the palms of her hands. A white glow flickered in the darkness before it bloomed under her intense focus. Pain swelled behind her eyes, but she didn’t break her concentration as she thrust her hands toward the monster that closed in on them.

The shadow-filled woods were suddenly illuminated by Sunshine’s brilliant glow. It struck the creature with enough force to stop it in its tracks. The light pierced its skin and caused it to roar out in pain and anguish. The light seared the monster’s skin, preventing it from moving from its spot. Its claws slashed through the air in an attempt to stop the beam of light, but it only caused its arms to take the heat instead of his body.

From behind her, a gasp sounded from the parted lips of Nancy Wheeler.

Sunshine was only able to hold the stream of brutal light for a moment before her focus was sliced by a deeper pain that clouded the entirety of her brain. She fell backward against the ground and watched as the world around her became swarmed with little black dots.

The urge to fall asleep right there compelled her, but not before a pair of hands latched onto her shoulders and hastily tried to haul her upwards. Sunshine fought her own body to stay awake.

A wide-eyed and extraordinarily confused Nancy managed to get Sunshine standing before she once again took her hand and dragged her in the direction of a tree with a similar hole to the one they crawled through before.

Their sets were clumsy until they fell to their knees. There was no hesitation before they crawled through it for the second time; they couldn’t afford to hesitate. Sunshine had only wounded the monster and it was recovering quickly, much angrier than it was a minute before.

Nancy crawled through first, but Sunshine wasted no time following.

Each movement made her head throb with more pain and her vision was blurry. Slime coated her hands and clung to her clothing, and blood dripped from her nose.

She crawled until she broke through the film on the other side and collapsed against the rotting leaves with uneven breaths.

The moon once again hung in the sky, and the stars returned.

Heavy sobs came from Nancy as she wrapped her arms around Jonathan and buried her head in the crook of his neck. He held onto her, and shot a frightful look at Sunshine, silently asking her what had happened.

All she could do was stare at the hole in the base of the tree; it knitted itself back together, disappearing from their sight like it had never been there at all.

Sunshine knew was it was like to be scared; she had been scared for as long as she could remember. It was rooted in white walls smeared with the blood of forgotten children, needles pressed into her skin, and the rough hands of scientists and doctors. But the fear she felt at that moment was something else entirely. The image of a monster, a real monster, in its cold and dark world, unlocked a new kind of fear within her; one that she didn’t know how to cope with.

The three teenagers escaped the woods in a silent blur that Sunshine didn’t remember. One moment she was sitting on the ground of the woods, the next she was in another house with a new set of clothes in her hands.

Nancy let her use the shower to rid her skin of the blood on her face and slime on her limbs. When she stood underneath the warm water, all Sunshine saw was the monster's bloodied rows of teeth ready to rip them apart.

Being all alone inside another locked bathroom set her on edge, but she knew the second he returned to Nancy’s bedroom where the other two were, she’d have to answer their questions about what happened.

She used her abilities in front of Nancy; there was no way she could lie her way out of it. Nancy saw her; Nancy helped her. Maybe the truth wouldn’t make things worse for all of them. Maybe it would help.

She couldn’t roam the woods in Hawkins anymore. She needed help, and maybe the only way for her to get that was to tell someone the truth. Since Nancy had watched her use her abilities and saw a real-life monster, maybe the truth wouldn’t be so shocking or frightening.

However, that didn’t mean Nancy and Jonathan wouldn’t look at her the same way the soldiers inside the Lab had.

Once her skin was rubbed raw and she smelled like the flower-scented soap Nancy had in her bathroom, Sunshine put on a fresh change of clothes. They fit better than the pajamas Steve had let her borrow, which she ended up technically stealing. They also were pink, light pink, and covered in a flower pattern.

Sunshine combed her finger through her short hair and studied the newly formed bruises that mingled with the old ones in different stages of healing.

Deciding she couldn’t hide in the bathroom any longer, she wandered back into Nancy’s room as quietly as she could, remembering that Nancy had a family who all were home and could not know she nor Jonathan were there.

When she entered the girl’s bedroom, Nancy and Jonathan stopped their conversation. There was a tense moment of silence that followed. Sunshine stood in front of the closed door and folded her arms protectively over her chest.

Nancy’s eyes were bloodshot and her whole face puffy from crying. Her wet hair hung down her back and she too was in a set of floral pajamas, only hers were blue. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Nancy sat up a little straighter and peered at Sunshine with an unreadable gaze.

“How did you do that?” she croaked out, sniffling. “T-The thing, in the woods. How did you…?”

Fear crawled up Sunshine’s throat and her gaze fell onto the carpeted floor. A part of her wanted to run away, right out the door and somewhere else where she could hide again. But her options dwindled. She couldn’t leave Hawkins without her sister, and she couldn’t hide in the woods even if there wasn’t a monster. She was cold, tired, hungry, and scared. She needed help.

Slowly, she took a step toward the two strangers and rolled up the sleeve of her right arm. With the monster, maybe she wasn’t the strangest thing in Hawkins anymore.

Both Nancy and Jonathan leaned forward, getting a better look at the tattoo on her wrist.

They studied it for a moment, before Jonathan asked, “Double-oh-seven, what does it mean? Beside a James Bond reference.”

Sunshine tapped on the tattoo with her other hand, then tapped the center of her chest. “Seven. I-It’s me. It’s the number they gave me,” she tried to explain. “It’s the number they gave me. The number experiment I am.”

“Experiment?” Nancy repeated, furrowing her brows.

There weren’t words that could explain perfectly what Sunshine was or where she came from; it was too complicated, and she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened in there. Sunshine wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready to talk about it.

So, she simply nodded and hoped that the teens put together enough pieces to satisfy some of their burning questions.

Sunshine saw it in Nancy’s eyes, the wheels in her head turned even in her distressed state. Clearing her throat, she tore her eyes away from the tattoo and turned them back onto Sunshine.

“You said you were hiding. That’s how you ended up at Steve’s. But you weren’t hiding from that thing we saw, you were hiding from people, right?” she nodded. “Did they do that to you?”

The three-digit tattoo on her wrist was a little faded, and it was covered in healed scars from the times she sunk her nails into her skin, hoping to tear the numbers out. It was a constant reminder of what she was, what she’d done, and what had been done to her; she hated the tattoo more than anything. She could run away from the Lab, and she could avoid using her powers, but she couldn’t get rid of the tattoo. It was like a stain she’d never wash out.

“Yes,” Sunshine answered, her voice no louder than a faint whisper. She met Nancy’s eyes, which were filled with a million more questions. There was something else in her gaze as well, pity. It made Sunshine squirm.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Nancy said. “How is…how does that even…how?”

There was no answer to how or why. It just was. It didn’t matter if she or anyone understood any of it.

“There’s a monster in Hawkins you two disappeared into a tree. Nothing about anything makes sense,” Jonathan sighed.

Covering her tattoo with her sleeve, Sunshine nervously looked between the two teens. “You can’t tell anyone I’m here. It’s not safe. Nor for me and not for you.”

Nancy’s frown deepened and her gaze wandered to the far side of her bedroom. There were a series of photographs pinned on the wall. They all were bright and held smiling faces. Nancy’s whole room was bright, decorated with countless things that Sunshine assumed most normal girls had in their bedrooms. Everything was a shade of light pink or blue or yellow. It was nice.

“That thing in the woods has to be what took Barb and Will. W-We can’t let it take anyone else, any more kids. We can’t.” Nancy’s voice was thick with emotion. “Can you help us get them back?”

She had no idea if she could, but she knew that whether or not she said yes, the two were going after the monster again. And there was a good chance they’d hurt themselves in the process.

Sunshine wasn’t really a fighter, not a good one, but her abilities did maim the monster. She didn’t kill it, but maybe she could. If she had food in her stomach and a night’s sleep somewhere other than the woods, maybe she’d have enough energy to do some real damage to it.

If she helped them get their friend and brother back, maybe they could help her get Eleven back.

“Yes,” she said.

Nancy’s shoulders relaxed just slightly. “Your secret is safe with us, right?” she nudged Jonathan’s shoulder with her own.

The boy still looked confused about, well, everything considering he hadn’t seen any of it. But he nodded anyway and replied, “Yeah.”

And that was it. There were no more questions and Sunshine felt like she could breathe for the first time in days, even if the horrible images of that monster stained her eyes.

“You guys can stay here tonight.” Nancy’s words were more so aimed at Jonathan since it was apparent that Sunshine had nowhere else to stay.

“I…I don’t want to be alone,” Nancy admitted. “Is that okay?”

Jonathan’s cheeks looked flushed under the low light of Nancy’s bedroom. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

Blankets and pillows were placed on both sides of Nancy’s bed for Sunshine and Jonathan.

Sunshine lied down and wrapped herself tightly in the warm blanket, but her body still shook from the events of that night. Nancy kept the light on; they were too scared to be left in the dark.

None of them would get much sleep that night, no matter how badly they wanted it. Sunshine was beyond exhausted, but each time she closed her eyes she saw the monster flash its teeth and leap toward him. Every single bump in the night sent her spiraling.

Yet, there was some sense of comfort that came from knowing she wasn’t alone in the room. The quiet breaths of Nancy and Jonathan provided some peace. But peace always escaped her; she couldn’t hold onto it for long.

Tagged → @thearcher-winchester-version @sattlersquarry @suniloli

#stranger things #steve harrington #nancy wheeer #jonathan byers #stranger things fic #steve harrington fic #steve harrington x oc #steve harrington x original character #steve harrington slow burn #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things season one #st1 #project sunshine #stranger things moodboard

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queenkoalas-corner-of-hell · 1 year

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Well the Tobirama characterization poll for Useful (working title) is doing better than I thought, as far as like interacting goes. Ok, so while that does its thing lets talk “Tobirama's Dowry Issue”, I'm once again asking to pick the masses' collective brain to like fact check me and spot the issues I'm not seeing anymore.

Here’s the problem/solutions I'm settling on (well the multiple problems in one mathematical issue, I asked historical reddit but no dice)… it's lengthy, but maybe it'll help someone not writing Tobirama/Madara bc this stuff was a task to figure out.

Yuinou. Like a bride price + food and drink + engagement party but where the family taking whichever spouse is paying for the other family’s investment in the kid. Its almost like a retirement fund for the family whose kid left bc that kid won’t be there to help their elderly parents as much. From what I can tell, it was determined based on how much the that investment was. Now it seems like it's a salary's worth multiplied by the region's exception. (n x salary = yuinou). SO I need Madara's and Tobirama's wages. Easy peasy right? Right?

Ninja Salary. How much everyone makes in Naruto is actually impossible to figure out. Because of the many factors that go into how the economy works in Naruto, you also have the pseudo benefit to have it connected to real world currency. The whole 1 ryo -> 10 yen all well and good but if you know even a passing whiff of an idea of Japan's economic history you begin to see the issues (rant for another day). The only solid thing we have in prices is how pricey the reward for a completed mission is. (Which actually sucks as far as info goes because it implies either an ungodly inflation rate, taxation to the high heavens, and/or ninja are responsible for their own retirement pension.) If we use Itachi's numbers for missions completed that are weighted toward the middle-higher scale and his freakishly well documented amount of time he took to do said missions, dump his D into A we have about 3,300,00 ryo a year/275k a month for a well to do ninja. But what about the warring period?

Wages for our old timey boys. Our best real world example is samurai were paid a nebulous annual 200 koku by their daimyo. If we pretend that the ryo was worth a koku as intended, without the drama of Japan's banking, then he should only be making 16 ryo a month. OBVIOUSLY that's not going to be it in modern standards because the Senju and Uchiha are well off enough to feud. You can't feed and clothe an army on 160 yen a month unless inflation actually hit the Naruto world like a freight train. (Honestly, possible, those wars had to be doing something). So the Ryo had to have lost value before Kishimoto decided the 1 ryo = 10 yen thing or whatever Narutoverse's equivalent of a koku was is vastly different. But if we take the actual worth of a koku in modern terms we can guess the Naruto ryo's worth. To clarify 1 koku should be enough rice to feed a man a year, about 150 kg/330 lbs. If 1 kg of rice is 463 yen then 1 koku would be 69,450 yen aka 6,945 ryo. Make that 200 koku and you get 1,389,000 "ryo" a year, 115,750 a month. It may not be 3m. But! What we get from that is real world historical buying power... which I can use to do some typical writer BS. If a clan of 200 had an active 50 ninja, consumed 200 koku minimum then the income of the clan as a whole would be around 66,561,000 ryo a year from ninja alone. Not counting purchasing metals or cloth or livestock that can be refined by the non shinobi or already processed things and luxuries like spices and medicines. The civilians would make a generous 7k annually (some likely not making anything because they're children and some being too old to work) so all together they'd add 1,225,000 ryo which again would likely go towards food and clothing costs but it would lessen the burden on the shinobi being bread winners (even though they are), it'd keep a certain level of luxury to the main clan's living conditions.

All these factors considered it'd make 200k ryo a month for an heir, maybe 250k for a leader. (2-2.5 million yen (14,880-18,600 USD or 13,496-16,870 EUR as far as conversion goes today)) So now we got (n x 200k = yuinou), what about this region number? Well, I can can be completely arbitrary with this since the only examples I have are modern. 3 or 4 wouldn't be a strange number, so let's say the low end is 3 x 200k and the extreme high end would be 4 x 250k. Making a yuinou between these clans a whopping 600k ~ 1m "ryo", this number would work for most of us in the Warring Clan corner of Naruto. It's an obscene amount considering 72% of people following the tradition now is half or lower as much. It does work though when you consider how old money both clans are. Madara/Izuna marrying Hashirama or Tobirama. Hashirama/Tobirama marrying Madara or Izuna, heck, it's a good estimate for how much yuinou was paid for Mito.

But then... what is Tobirama's dowry? Yuinou isn't dowry, it's coming from the Uchiha... and there are manuals for appropriate items to take from your parents home to where you're marrying into (I just can't read or find them so second hand sources are my main). Amount though... Basically I'm going to fudge it after looking at the buying power of the clan and Tobirama himself. Then fudge it more to fit the story I'm concocting. Will anyone care? Probably not. But I spent the last two days down this rabbit hole simply because I needed to know what was within Tobirama's monetary means. The driving point of my yaoi slash fic is the man doing everything he can to be useful.

(Also if you found this doing a deep search for Naruto economics or Japan's traditional marriage practices, I am so sorry.)

#i should mention that this is #madara x tobirama #madatobi #but like adjacent #warring states period #naruto hcs #in depth headcanon #fictional economic nightmares #fact check #plz im begging #im losing my mind #i need help #historical and mathmatical help #and maybe mental help

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moodulated · 1 year

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Okay due to popular demand, here's the lil first chapter of the fic I started once upon a time! The date on the document tells me it was written August 9th 2015 specifically, 4:03am (that checks out)

It was meant to be about Drakken and Shego first meeting, but I don't remember what I was actually going to do with them lmao

I didn't really edit anything save for a few awkward phrases as my English wasn't quite as good back then, so please be nice I was still a kid 😂🩷

Beginning [working title]

She would’ve thought finding a villain’s secret lair should’ve been harder, at least a little. She hadn’t even needed to search.

No, she had picked up the address in the villain’s magazine “Villain’s Weekly” (yes, villains had their own magazine! And they didn’t even seem to check who subscribed to it either, given that someone with her background had had no trouble getting her hands on the newest issue). Technically, every single superhero in the world could easily check the pages for the latest trends in villainy, interesting schemes and detailed profiles and interviews of the top trending evildoers, stopping them in their tracks before they could even start on their plans. It was a mystery how it hadn’t happened before.

Or maybe it had, but no one had cared to mention.

Anyways, here she was now, sitting on a chair in a dimly lit hallway, opposite to a closed metal door which appeared to be the entrance to an office or something. A hand-written cardboard sign saying “Now Hiring” was propped up next to it. After entering the lair (she had actually rung the doorbell instead of just letting herself in as she was used to, trying not to make an all too bad first impression) a man with a clueless expression who seemed to be in his late 30’s had let her in, though his age was hard to tell due to the red mask and sunglass-thingies that covered his eyes and appeared to be part of his uniform/jumpsuit.

After telling him why she was there he had led her to the chair and disappeared inside the room opposite of her for a few seconds before emerging again and telling her to please wait a moment, the boss would receive her soon.

The woman took the time to take in her surroundings. The building was large and located in what she guessed had used to be a factory a long time ago, set in a somewhat remote location, though not actually as remote as one would’ve expected. The drive here from the nearest village had merely taken her about 20 minutes. Granted, she hadn’t exactly obeyed the speed limit, but still.

She hadn’t seen much of the inside yet on her way in, only the entrance hall that she had walked through on her way to the long, dark corridor in which she now sat. Still, it had been enough to get a vague idea of the rest of the place.

The hall was fairly large, if not to say unnecessarily so, and the ceiling was so high up that there were even a couple of bridge-like passages up there one could comfortably walk on without being in any danger of bumping one’s head. There were merely enough lamps to be able to see properly without developing a headache after five minutes, and most of the room’s walls were hidden behind robotic figures of any shapes and sizes, covered in shadows, seemingly lurking there as if waiting for the time to strike.

All in all, the place had a very eerie vibe to it; a bit too eerie for her taste. Not that she was afraid – she didn’t scare, ever – but it just felt kind of cliché. It looked exactly the way the villain’s lairs had always looked like in the movies she’d watched as a kid, and she would’ve thought they’d make it a bit less obvious in real life. This place just had evil lair written all over it, complete with a neon sign with an arrow pointing at the door. She could only imagine what the person who owned this place would be like. But then again, at least he didn’t live in a literal nest on a mountain and dressed as a bird.

Still, the overly cliché lair complete with dim lighting and inventions that were obviously there for the sole purpose of creating an atmosphere, the ridiculous “Now Hiring” sign midst all of it and the fact that she had found this place because both address and phone number had been printed in a public magazine in bold under the heading “EVIL SIDEKICK WANTED – CALL DR. DRAKKEN” should’ve given her an indication to leave and never look back.

But for some reason that she didn’t, and would never in the years to follow understand, she stayed.

And when the door opened and a man with light blue skin, a dark blue lab coat, messy, black hair and a huge grin on his face peeked out of it before emerging completely and said “Welcome, Miss Shego. Sorry to leave you waiting. Why don’t you come in and we get started?” she got up, gave him a polite smile as well, shook his hand and followed him back through the door.

#kim possible #shego #dr drakken #drakgo #not actually shippy but i know for a fact it was meant to be heading there #i also started one from drakken's pov but that one's only two paragraphs rip #lil me had plans tho wow

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woolmasterleel · 2 years

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2 and 4!!! Also curious about 8 for Kisaki and Tagashei since they're dads 🥺👉👈

I appreciate your asks so much thank you!! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

2. Which OC brags about a nickname they've been given?

Demi and Pea I think?? "Pea" isn't his real name, that just what his parents call him, but he absolutely loves it and always introduces himself as such!

For Demi though, his real "name" was the name of the fungus, but Sophia started calling him Demi after he started to, much to her annoyance, respond to "Subject D3M-1". She didn't want him listen in on any operations they'd be doing on him since he's either lash out or just not cooperate, so they had to switch up the name.. but he really likes being called Demiascareous (❁´◡`❁)

Not really bragging themselves, but Kisaki was all over the news referring to Tagashei as the "Mad Rabbit", he thought it was so fun and threatening!

2a. What do they find brag-worthy about it?

Pea thinks it's cute, and because his parents keep saying he's the cutest, he just stomps around the lab announcing that.. he is just a baby.

Demi never really gets over his god complex, so having a fancy name just fuels his ego more than it should...

4. Which OC gave themselves a new name at some point in their life?

Ohhhh Kisaki actually! I don't actually have his previous name figured out but it isn't important to his story or the character, he doesn't need people to know what it was anyway, he just says that person doesn't exist anymore.. which is kind of true in a way, he used to be completely different!

I guess Galvarium counts too?? She didn't have a name before connecting with Pandora, actually it was Pandora that gave her the name! This was after Galvarium got an understanding on humanity of course.

Fate wasn't always his name, he had a regular name when he was a simple mathematician! He changed his name after he became an angel, and the name stuck when he was sent to Limbo

4a. Was there anything that drew them to choosing that specific name?

For Kisaki, he kind of just went with it.. he was never too concerned about his identity as an individual, so he picked it and stuck with it!

Pandora suggested something pretty to Lady G, and since Galvarium only ever understood the world through Pandora at that point, she liked it!

Fate changed his name to that since.. he manipulates fates. And he's a very straightforward "person", so of course he went with something simple.

8. If asked to make up a bedtime story, what would your OC come up with?

Oh god okay Kisaki and Tagashei try their best at parenting but they do things very different from the conventional parenting.. ie, "teach Alice how to isolate metals and then weld them into an axe at the age of 5" or something unsafe. Anyway!

Tagashei would make his stories way too violent (probably), he'd most likely make up a story about someone kicking his aggressors into a raging fire or whatever then going home to sleep knowing that they are no longer an issue. Oh god or he's tell the Mad Rabbit origin story and freak her out.. that or if he tells it enough she gives him the "dad I want a real story >:("

Kisaki, on the other hand, would just recite lab procedures, or go off about any theories or experiments he wants to try.. science stuff!

I do think though, both of them would make up some story of a family being reunited, being safe and happy.. it's what both of them really want and are trying to achieve, and they'd want Alice to feel safe and not worry about all the things that are happening ╯︿╰

Thank you for the ask, these were super fun!! Made me think about them in a way I haven't before (～￣▽￣)～

#Ask #Always appreciate it thank you again! :D

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rhetoricandlogic · 6 months

Text

Many Mansions By K.J. Parker

Issue #313, Twelfth Anniversary Double-Issue, September 24, 2020

“So you can raise the dead.” She yawned. “How clever.”

With women (in my limited experience), ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s the way they say it. They’re so much better at nuances than we are. It’s what they don’t say, what they imply by voice or gesture, that’s so infuriatingly eloquent.

“Not that I ever would,” I replied. “Goes without saying. Absolutely forbidden.”

She smiled and said nothing. The smile was a case in point. You aren’t impressing me, it said, and God knows, I had no reason to want to impress her, but I did want to, very badly, and I was trying too hard and making a real hash of it. All that, conveyed in one constriction of the facial muscles. Makes you wonder why they talk all the damn time when their silences are so eloquent.

“You don’t believe me,” I said. “Ah well.”

“I didn’t say that.” The smile changed shape slightly. “I’m sure you can do all these wonderful things, if your superiors let you. But they don’t, so really, what’s the point?”

In my line of work I visit the Mesoge quite often, and I frequently stop overnight in inns. After I’ve washed my face in the freezing cold water provided absolutely free of charge and eaten the inevitable house mutton and lentil stew, I take a book and sit by the fire in the common room. I only do this because the common-room fire is actually warm, as opposed to the feeble glow you get in your bedchamber, and there’s enough light to read by without giving yourself a headache. I don’t do it for the company. I’m an educated, refined man, a scholar. I reserve my conversation for the select few who can understand and appreciate it. I most certainly don’t chat up women in taprooms.

“Indeed,” I said. “But it’s like a soldier. He’s trained to kill people with extreme efficiency. But he only does it when his commanding officer tells him to. It’s the same with me and—”

“Magic?”

She only used the word to rile me. Everybody knows, we don’t do magic. The members of my order are not wizards. We’re scholars, scientists, natural and metaphysical philosophers. True, we can do things the uneducated can’t; a blacksmith or a carpenter can say exactly the same thing. A blacksmith can take two metal rods and join them so you can’t see where one ends and the other begins; but that’s not magic, it’s welding. No; some things, some apparently extraordinary and miraculous things, can be done, if you know the trick. Others can’t, no matter how many books you’ve read. That’s what we tell people, and in many respects it’s true.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I only said it to tease you. And you’re quite right. If people went about doing things just because they can, there’d be mayhem.” She smiled again, in a totally different way. “It’s been so nice talking to you. Goodnight.”

And she stood up and walked out of the room, leaving me feeling like a hunter who’s stalked a deer for two hundred yards only to tread on a twig just outside bowshot. But I hadn’t started it. I was sitting by the fire reading Saloninus on conditional uncertainty. She was the one who sat down opposite and said, That looks interesting, not many people read Saloninus these days. And she wasn’t even particularly pretty or particularly young. And anyway, I don’t do any of that sort of thing, we’re not allowed, as everybody knows perfectly well. My guess was, she did it because she could. Understandable and very antisocial, as she’d no doubt have been the first to agree.

I hate the Mesoge. Heavy winter rain had turned the roads to mud, and the cart got bogged down. I asked the carter, how far to Rysart? Two miles, he told me.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll walk.”

He looked at me. “You paid all the way to Rysart.”

I hauled out the sack I carry my stuff in. About thirty pounds, dead weight. “No problem,” I said. “Fresh air and exercise.”

“I got to go on to Rysart anyway. I got stuff to deliver.”

In the back of the cart lay a shovel, two iron crowbars, wedges, sacking; all the paraphernalia needed for getting the cart unstuck. A two-hour job, in the dark, the mud and the rain. Needless to say, I could have got the cart out of the rut and back on the road in five seconds; tollens aequor, a second-level Form you learn in first year. But I’m not allowed.

“Drop in at the inn when you get there,” I said. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

I started to walk. The mud sucked at my boots, the rain trickled off my hood into my eyes, and the weight of the sack made my fingers ache. I trudged fifty yards, which I guessed was enough to be out of sight, in weather like that, at night. Then I muttered a few simple words under my breath. The sack suddenly weighed about six ounces. The soles of my boots floated on the surface of the mud. The rain flew down at me but somehow missed. A light that only I could see illuminated the road, all the way down the valley. I wasn’t allowed, of course, but who was there to see?

I was there because I have a field-officer rating. I wanted that rating about as much as I wanted a sixth toe on my left foot, but you have to get your field ticket before you can be made up to seventh grade, and I’m deplorably ambitious. I’m also a theorist, not a man of action; naturally contemplative, at home in the study, the cloister, the library, the chapter-house. Outdoors, in the wet mud, on my way to deal with problems in the real world, is not where I belong. But they send me because I get the job done—an early mistake on my part. On my first field assignment, I was under the impression that a splendidly successful outcome would win me merit and commendation. Silly me. What it got me was a reputation for being able to do this sort of thing. What I should’ve done was make a total hash of it, and they’d never have sent me again, and I’d be an abbot by now.

(“You understand these people,” Father Prior said to me, after he’d broken the bad news about this job. “You talk their language. You’re one of them.” I didn’t hit him because it��s not allowed. Perfectly true, of course. I was born and raised on a farm, in the horrible, primitive Mesoge. I left it to get away from backbreaking work and stupid people. So, what happens? They keep sending me back there.)

How can I begin to describe Rysart in the rain and the pitch dark? Yet another nasty little Mesoge village; the smell told me everything I needed to know before the first silhouetted barn loomed up out of the darkness. I knew the inn would be opposite the meeting-house, which would be at the north end of the one broad street. There’s no reason why it always should be, but it always is. It’s the way it’s always been done, you see. Lots of alwayses in the Mesoge.

The inn door was shut, but there were cracks of light under it. I tried the handle, but the bolts were shot. I banged on it and waited for a very long time, during which rain fell on me. I’d cancelled fulvens dissimilis as soon as the smell hit me, just in case, so I was getting wet.

“What the hell do you want?”

I smiled. “A bed for the night, please. You’re expecting me.”

She looked like I’d insulted her, but she opened the door anyway. The smell of dogs and wet wool made me catch my breath. I grew up with it, but when you’re used to a smell, you don’t notice it, until you’ve been away for a while, and then it hits you like a fist. It’s not actually an unpleasant smell, but it said home to me, and I left home a long time ago.

The room was the sort of thing you’d confidently store logs in without worrying too much about mould. The lentil and mutton stew came with a mountain of fermented cabbage. The water had that taste. The fire in the common room had burnt down to embers. “In the morning,” I said, “I want to see the Father and the mayor, and probably the reeve and the constable.”

She stared at me, as though I’d asked her to bring me her son’s head in a cream of asparagus sauce. But my tone of voice was just right. She nodded and got away from me as quickly as she could.

I wake up at sunrise, even when I don’t have a window. It’s a farm-boy thing, and I get teased about it all the time.

Even so; by the time I’d washed and had a good scratch, they were all waiting for me in the taproom, sitting in dead silence; six extremely worried men, the answer to whose prayers was me. They looked at each other as I walked in. I guess they’d had a vote and elected the Father to be the spokesman; fair enough. Did you ever meet a country priest who didn’t love the sound of his own voice?

“Are you—?”

I nodded. Spare him the embarrassment. “My name is Father Bohenna, and I’m from the Studium,” I said. “Now, I know the basic facts, but I’ll need you to fill me in on specifics. Then I can decide whether our intervention is called for, and if so, what the procedures will be, where your jurisdiction ends and ours begins, and so on and so forth. If we could start with some names.”

They introduced themselves. I’m hopeless with names. Unless I write them down, they’re in one ear and out the other. There are men I’ve known and worked with for fifteen years, but I have no idea what they’re called; they told me once, and you can’t keep asking or you make yourself look ridiculous. But I never forget a face, or a voice, or a body odour. So, the names washed over me like the spring floods, but I made a mental note. The tall, thin, crafty looking man, around fifty-five, bushy white hair, was the mayor. The two round-faced bruisers with the red cheeks—brothers—were the reeves. The little rat-faced man was the constable; I knew his sort, looks like the wind would blow him off his feet, but he draws the strongest bow in the village and God help you if you pick a fight with him. The seven-foot fair-haired idiot was somebody’s son, there to open doors for his father and sit still when not in use. A competent body of men. I’ve dealt with far worse.

The Father took a deep breath. “It all began,” he said—

Obviously, you hear some crazy stories in this job. Some of them you can safely discount. It depends on who tells them, and how they tell them. The thing in this case was that the Father couldn’t ever possibly have had an imaginative thought in his entire life. He wasn’t the sort. If you told him you were having a whale of a time, he’d look round the room for a whale.

It all started, he said, when two of the village girls began having fits. Nothing unusual in that, or at least not in the Mesoge. My sister was singularly prone to them; temper tantrums, floods of tears, right up till the day she realised that prospective husbands don’t really like that sort of thing, at which point she calmed down remarkably until the ring was safely on her finger. But these weren’t the usual sort of fits.

There’s something profoundly unsettling about hearing wild, spooky stories told by an utterly prosaic man. He described what the girls claimed they’d seen.

One night— You’re reading this, so you can read, so I don’t suppose you’re familiar with daily life in the Mesoge, so I’d better explain. Our houses have two rooms, one for the family and one for the livestock. The family room is square, with a hearth in the middle. We never quite got around to inventing the chimney, so we pitch our roofs high, to give the smoke somewhere to flock up and hover. We sleep on straw or feather mattresses in a square around the hearth. Rich folk with pretensions curtain off the back end for the man of the house and his wife—we did in our family; I can picture the curtain to this day, it was heavy felted wool painted to look like tapestry, the Ascension, and to the day I die the Invincible Sun will always have that crude, slightly half-witted face, like he’s just been woken up in the middle of the night. Children sleep in a heap, like puppies, on the opposite side from their parents, with the elderly, the poor relations, the dog, and the hired help making up the other two sides of the square. None of this should matter; the idea is that you should come in from work so tired out from your honest labours that as soon as you’ve bolted down your food you go straight to sleep. In practice; yes, we get on each others’ nerves like you wouldn’t believe, which is probably why the murder rate has always been so high in the Mesoge.

Anyway. One night these two girls (fifteen and fourteen) started screaming in their sleep. It took a lot to wake them up, and once they were awake they were lashing out, biting and scratching. Their father laid into them with a broom-handle to quiet them down. When they were coherent again, they said that a tall, well-dressed woman in a white lace cap had knelt down beside them and stuck them repeatedly with a brooch-pin.

Don’t be so bloody stupid, said their father, or words to that effect; but it happened again the next night, and the night after that, and then in broad daylight. Their mother went to see the Father, much to her husband’s annoyance. The Father found himself in a difficult position. He was and always had been a convinced sceptic. He didn’t believe in witchcraft, but he looked in his book—like most Mesoge priests, he only had one—and sure enough, the facts as related were a classic case of bewitchment, and he had no alternative but to treat it as such. He told the parents that their girls were bewitched, then sat down with his head in his hands and tried to figure out what he was supposed to do about it.

Now, so far, the only people who knew about all this were the family and the Father; but shortly after that, three girls in another family on the other side of the parish started doing exactly the same thing. They too were terrorised by an elegant woman in a white lace cap, though sometimes she came as a tall black-and-white nanny-goat, and sometimes she had a goshawk on her wrist. When the Father went to see them, the eldest girl started to tell her story, then broke off and tried to bite off her own tongue; she did quite a lot of damage before her mother got her jaws apart and stuffed her mouth with rags. And then a man in the village jumped out of a tree and broke his back; he lived long enough to say that a fine lady in a white bonnet had scooped him up off the ground, carried him to the top of the tree and pushed him off. A rich farmer in the valley lost ninety sheep to some sort of scouring sickness he’d never seen before. Six hay-ricks caught fire in the space of a week. A man came home from market to find a huge black bear waiting for him on his doorstep, in a district where the bears are brown and never come into the villages. It scratched up the side of his face pretty badly—the scars were plainly visible—he hit it with his stick, and it vanished into thin air.

By this point, the Father’s scepticism was wearing rather thin. He called in the mayor, who sent for the reeves and the constable, who convened an assembly of heads of families in the meeting-house. Needless to say, the meeting just made things worse. Everybody had strong views about the identity of the witch, and no two people had the same candidate in mind. When at last the Father could make himself heard, he told them there was only one thing they could do. And now, here I was, and what did I intend to do, and how soon could I start?

By this point, apparently, the witch was definitely getting above herself. She no longer operated at night—presumably she needed her sleep like everyone else, and she appeared to be operating on a massively overcrowded schedule, so who can blame her? On average there were between six and ten attacks a day, affecting roughly half the families in the village. Although the witch appeared only as herself or the black-and-white goat, there was no recognisable description, because as soon as anyone tried to describe her they bit their own tongue or bashed their head against a wall. She was visible on her own terms, generally only to the person she was afflicting, but very occasionally to three or four bystanders as well. The Father and the other elders tried to meet a few times to discuss a plan of action, but they gave up when she took to sitting down with them, on a chair that hadn’t been there before she arrived but which stayed there after she left. In fact, the same chair I was sitting in right now—

I stood up quickly, then slowly sat down again. “So you’ve seen her.”

The Father nodded. “But please, don’t ask me to describe her.”

I nodded. “No need,” I said.

He frowned, then all the colour drained from his face. “You can see inside my—?”

“Yes. But don’t worry. I’m an expert, and anything else I might happen to see I’m really not interested in.” He didn’t seem reassured, but I couldn’t help that. I mumbled aspergo devictos under my breath and looked straight at the side of his head and through it. “Thank you,” I said. “All over.”

The look on his face; he’d be happier dealing with the witch than me, any time. “You saw her?”

“Clearly.”

The constable said; “She’s standing behind you, right now.”

Nobody moved, especially me. “Is she now,” I said.

No reply. The constable’s mouth was open, but he didn’t seem able to speak. The others were looking down, at the ground, as though they were afraid of catching something really nasty through their eyes. Slowly I reached for my tea-bowl and drank what was left in it. Then I stood up and turned round.

Something lashed out at me. Scutum fidei and lorica will stop practically anything, but I felt the smack. Like a man in armour; the arrow or the javelin is turned and doesn’t pierce, but even so you get a hell of a thump. Instinctively—no, I’m ashamed to say, impulsively, with no proper control at all—I hit back with stricto ense or benevolentia or something of the sort, like you do in second year when you’re just starting on the military Forms; suddenly I’d regressed twenty years and forgotten everything I’d ever learned about fighting. It must have worked, though. I distinctly heard a scream, and then there was nothing there, except a bloodstain on the rushes.

I felt a complete fool. But the constable said, “Did you kill her?” in a tiny voice.

“No,” I said.

“But you beat her.”

I was still feeling disgusted with myself, and I really didn’t want to talk or deal with the public. I sat down again, carefully not looking at any of them. My hands were shaking. “Thank you for coming, gentlemen,” I said. “You can leave it to me now. This shouldn’t take long.”

“You can—?”

“Yes. Now, I think it would be advisable for everyone to stay in their houses for the rest of the day, if that’s at all possible. There’s no immediate danger, but it’s best to be on the safe side.”

That got rid of them, and I sat for a while perfectly still, thinking; what the hell was all that about? A stripe hard enough to put a dent in scutum and lorica, and a twenty-year professional panicking, overriding a lifetime of training and conditioning to swipe wildly with thunderbolts. I wasn’t afraid—there’s no power on Earth, literally, that scares me any more, because I know I can beat them all—but I was bewildered and unnerved and unsettled, and I had to think to remember things that are usually part of the furniture of my mind; the Rooms, the Wards, the precepts of engagement. I felt like I was heading for a duel with a sword in one hand and a fencing text-book in the other.

Still. The hell with it. I was able to outfight tenured professors when I was fourteen years old. I despise fighting, of course. That’s why I’m so good at it. I just want it done with and out of the way.

Someone asked me why there aren’t any women at the Studium. I said, the same reason there aren’t any fish. She gave me a foul look and changed the subject, but it’s a valid answer.

There are things men can do and women can’t (and vice versa, goes without saying) and what we do is one of them. To put it crudely, they don’t have the parts. We don’t actually know what the parts are—we’ve picked over God knows how many brains, looking for a particular blob of mush or twist of gristle, all to no effect. I don’t suppose we’ll ever find it until we get a chance to dissect one of the very, very few women (we figure something like one in two million) who’s got it, and that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

No great loss, is how we see it. What we do, the power we have, is of very limited practical value. We’re theorists, pure scientists; we aren’t actually very much use to anybody, and where we could make ourselves useful—wiping out armies, destroying cities, sinking whole continents under the sea, bringing the dead back to life—we don’t allow ourselves to, for obvious reasons. Stripped of all pretences, euphemisms, justifications, and obfuscations; the main reason we do magic is because we can. Generally speaking, though, either it’s useless or it mustn’t be used. Now, why would women, who are so much more sensible and practical than us, want to bother with something so pointless?

Witches are, of course, the exception. It’s a sad fact that, out of the tiny number of women who are born with the talent and figure out how to use it, ninety-nine out of a hundred go on to make insufferable nuisances of themselves; hurting, persecuting, terrorising the district with acts of petty spite.

My learned colleagues say that this is because in everyday life, women are powerless and marginalised; they have no way of striking back against a society that subordinates and belittles them. Thus, when one-in-two-million suddenly finds herself powerful, her first instinct is to settle scores. Personally I dispute this. Anyone who says women are powerless never met my mother. What they really mean is, upper-class women are powerless and marginalised—which is entirely true; and of course, that’s the only sort of women my colleagues have ever had dealings with. But most witches are your basic peasant stock, simply because so are most people. There’s no higher incidence of witchcraft in the gentry, and so the oppressed-and-victimised theory doesn’t convince me. Myself, I figure that anyone, man or woman, who has the talent but isn’t identified and whisked off to the Studium at age ten to be taught polite behaviour would naturally use such powers to bully and torment others because that’s human nature for you. Let any man pick up a stick and he’ll use it to hit someone else, unless the other man’s got a stick too. And nothing will ever change that, believe you me.

My colleagues and I, however, are civilised, educated men. We know what to do in practically every eventuality. Which is why we have nothing whatsoever to be afraid of.

Finding her was no problem. Insignia verborum; you learn it in third year because it’s nominally a restricted Form; God only knows why, it’s harmless enough. It lights up a glowing trail, like a phosphorous snail. A tiny drop of blood, or a hair, or a nail-clipping, is all you need. I picked up one of the bloodstained rushes, and I was off.

It was raining again, and when I opened the door I could see the trail winding away over the hills and far away. I considered requisitioning a horse, but I hate horse-riding, my back gives me hell for days afterwards. You’re not supposed to use Forms just to keep from getting wet and muddy, but who was there to see or care, and if they did, so what? It’s the Mesoge. Nothing that happens there matters worth a damn. I fortified myself discreetly and set off on my long trudge.

It was well after sunset when the trail petered out, and by then I’d walked further than I had since I joined the Studium. Forms can give you strength, but they can’t stop your feet aching. But anyhow, I found myself on the wrong side of a gate set in a thick hedge; the quality live here, it said. Gates don’t hinder me much, locked or unlocked. On the other side, I saw a short drive leading to a large square black shape. I tweaked the view a bit with lux in tenebris and made out one of those fortified manor-houses that you get in the Mesoge; half farmhouse, half castle, our legacy from the Troubles three centuries ago. Curious, I thought. No reason to assume my witch was the lady of the house. Probably between fifteen and twenty women would live in a house that size, most of whom would be working for a living. My witch could just as easily be a scullerymaid or a cook.

But she wasn’t. I looked for her—standing in the pitch dark, with rain dripping off my hood—with victrix causa and spotted her in the great hall. She was sitting on a stool by the fire, sewing a cushion. A few feet away, her husband was serving the loops on a new bowstring. He was about fifty, a fine-looking man with a neatly trimmed grey beard and broad shoulders. Two sons played chess on a low table; twins, most likely, around twenty. A greyhound slept on a bearskin rug. Your ideal picture of the country gentry at home, a beatific vision of aspiration for yeomen farmers and uppity merchants. Awkward. I had a problem.

I was, of course, entirely within my rights to burst in, seize her by force, and blast anybody who tried to stop me. I was perfectly capable of all that. I had the power, the strength, and the authority. But you don’t do stuff like that just because you can. It’s insensitive and uncivilised, and we aren’t thugs or bullies. I was going to have to wait until they’d all gone to bed. I went and stood under a tree, from where I could watch the windows. The bedroom would be on the first floor of the big round tower; it always is. After an eternity, a faint light flared in the narrow window. I muttered victrix causa and peeped in.

Country squires in the Mesoge are old-fashioned, and they don’t throw out good furniture just because it’s two hundred and fifty years old. The bed, therefore, was a huge thing, size of a small shed, with heavy tapestry drapes. I’m no voyeur; I cut the Form and gave them plenty of time to undress, get into bed, and blow out the candle. The window went dark. I gave them another eternity to fall asleep, then squelched in my sodden boots up the drive to the front door.

Any fool can draw bolts with summa fides, but it takes real skill to do it quietly. There’d be servants and dogs sleeping in the hall, and anybody I woke up would have to be put back to sleep with benevolentia or some other unpleasantness. But I’m really very good at all the sneaking-about side of things. I’d have made a good thief or assassin; now there’s something to be proud of. I climbed the stairs without a sound. The bedroom door had old-fashioned leather hinges, and the floor was spread with rugs. Perfect.

She was fast asleep, her head on one side, her hair loose. When we met at the inn, she’d had it done up in those horrible spirals, like wicker mats; it suited her much better au naturel. She was still neither particularly pretty nor particularly young, but a part of me envied the silver-haired gentleman lying with his back to her. Still; if there’s one thing I hate, it’s being made a fool of.

I slipped into her mind, exactly the way she’d do it. I kept my scholar’s robe, because that’s what people see when they look at me; not the prematurely bald head or the weak chin or the silly little snub nose. I wanted to be sure she recognised me.

You can’t take anything into someone’s dream; you have to use what you find there. In her dream, on the bedside table lay a fine old silver and amber brooch, heirloom quality—my guess is, a real brooch she’d always hankered after but never managed to acquire. I picked it up and unfolded the pin. In her dream, she was fast asleep. I stuck the pin through the lid of her closed eye, then pulled it out.

She opened her eyes. One she couldn’t see through, the other stared at me. “Hello,” I said.

In her dream, she yelled. I shook my head. “Nobody can hear you,” I said. “We need to talk. You’ll find me at the inn.” Then I stuck the pin in her other eye and got out fast.

She hadn’t moved, though her eyes were tightly screwed up. Her husband was still fast asleep, so I guess she was a restless sleeper at the best of times. I blew her a kiss and went back down the stairs. I think a servant opened one eye and saw me as I thumbed the latch of the front door. So what?

I slept well that night. Genuine Mesoge sleep; healthy exhaustion after a hard day of useful, profitable work.

Some fool woke me up while it was still dark outside. Just as well for him I have perfect control; there are horror stories of servants at the Studium being blasted into cinders after waking up senior faculty members who weren’t morning people. There’s a lady to see you, said whoever it was. Note the choice of noun. He sounded deeply impressed.

I’m afraid of nothing, but I’m still capable of embarrassment. How do you start a conversation with a witch you recently blinded in her sleep, who also happens to be the local bigwig’s wife? As I pulled my hose on I decided I’d better be cruel and heartless, though I know full well I’m not very good at it. Probably she’d see through it straight away. As I stuffed my feet into my boots, which were ice-cold and clammy with last night’s rain, I thought; the hell with it, I’ll just be myself. Not a part I’ve ever been happy playing, but it’s less of a drain on my limited imaginative faculties.

She was sitting on the chair she’d conjured up and then not known how to dissolve. I don’t think she meant anything by it; probably she didn’t recognise it. A spiteful man would’ve vanished it with her still sat in it, but I’m not like that. I had no idea how to address her, so I settled on ‘Madam’, which is usually correct in the country.

She looked at me. Her eyes were bloodshot. Also, she had a cut on her cheek, just starting to scab over. I hadn’t noticed it the night before, so presumably she’d been lying on it. I did that, I thought guiltily, lashing out like a schoolboy. She was wearing a white lace cap and a heavy wool cloak, fastened at the shoulder with a simple silver starburst brooch.

I cleared my throat. “The cap,” I said. “Indiscreet.”

She shook her head. “I wear it all the time, so naturally nobody sees it any more. I assume you’ve told them.”

I was shocked. “No, of course not. I think we ought to find somewhere a bit more private.”

That made her grin. “Are you suggesting I go up to your room? I don’t think so.”

“Allow me.”

So, I wanted to impress her; of course I did, from the first moment I saw her, in the inn. So what? A show of power would terrify her, let her know she was dealing with someone infinitely stronger than herself; it would serve a useful purpose and therefore was allowed.

I touched her shoulder with the tip of my finger and took her to the third Room.

It’s just occurred to me that you may not know about Rooms. You’re not supposed to. Rooms are classified top secret, not to be mentioned or hinted at in front of unqualified personnel. I could get in big trouble if I were to tell you anything at all about Rooms. Basically, it’s like this.

Imagine you’re in a big house, or a palace, or a government building. There are lots of rooms in it, but for some reason I can’t begin to imagine, you’ve lived your entire life in just one of them. The concept of a door is so weird and unnatural to you that either you dismiss it as some crazy fantasy or else it terrifies you—anathema, abomination, and other words beginning with A to convey pious disgust.

At the beginning of second year, the class tutor shows you how to make a door. It’s the most extraordinary thing that ever happens to you, and you remember it for the rest of your life. After that, your sense of wonder gets work-hardened; miracles make you yawn, inconceivable wonders are just another day at the office. But your first door is always with you. It’s the moment when the world changed for ever.

In theory (and if I do manage to get tenure, it’s the area of theory I intend to devote the rest of my life to) there’s an infinite number of Rooms, linked by an infinite network of doors, stairways, and passages. In theory, you could get so good at this shit that instead of going to the Rooms, you could just sit there and all the Rooms would come to you. In practice, there are seven Rooms, and if you’re really brave and incredibly skilful and outrageously lucky, you might get to visit six of them by choice before you end up in the seventh very much against your will. In everyday life, you use three. I chose the third Room on this occasion because it’s always been my favourite. If there’s anywhere in the world this Mesoge farm boy is at home, it’s the third Room. When I’m there, I’m in control.

Normally, wherever and whoever you are, you aren’t in control. You may think you are, but you’re not. If you’re the Great King of the Sashan, brother of the Sun and bridegroom of the Moon, and you happen to let your favourite crystal goblet slip through your fingers, it’ll fall on the marble floor and smash into a thousand pieces, and if you cut yourself on one of the pieces and get blood poisoning, you’ll die. But when I’m in the third Room, if I drop something, it needs my permission to fall. Don’t get the idea that it’s like that for everyone in the third Room, by the way. I know a tenured professor of applied metaphysics who wouldn’t go in there if you paid him, because there are monsters under the bed. I know how he feels. You wouldn’t get me in the fifth Room if the rest of the world was on fire; yet my friend the professor goes there to relax and hide from his married sister when she calls for a visit.

I’m a bit of an old fusspot when it comes to décor. I know what I like. My small-r rooms in the West cloister of the Old Building are small, cold, and damp so I can’t really be bothered with them, but I’ve fixed up the third Room exactly how I like it. The walls are panelled oak, sort of a dark honey colour, with genuine late Mannerist tapestries depicting scenes from Chloris and Sorabel. On the floor I’ve got a rattan mat, because I love the smell and the way it cushions your feet. The ceiling is plaster mouldings with the details—birds nesting among the acanthus leaves, that sort of thing—picked out in gold leaf, because what is life without a few restrained splashes of vulgarity? The furniture is dark oak, almost black; two carved chairs, a table, a bookcase which only occupies half a wall but which somehow manages to hold all the books I ever want to read; three brass lamps; my grandfather’s sword on the wall just above my head, nice and handy if ever I need it; a footstool. And the nice thing is, I can go there for a whole afternoon and when I get back, I’ve only just left.

“What the hell?” I said.

I don’t usually swear in front of women, especially upper-class ones. I stared at her. She smiled.

It was the third Room, because I’d brought us here, up the second staircase, across the dark landing. I’d opened the door, my thumb on the old-fashioned wooden latch. More to the point, I was in front of her. It’s different when someone gets into a Room ahead of you, or you go in and it’s already occupied. I’m always very careful about that, believe me. But no, I’d opened the door and walked in, and then she followed me. “What have you done?” I said.

She pushed past me and sat down. There was only one chair. I had to make do with a low three-legged stool by the fire. She picked up her embroidery and carried on where she’d left off the night before. The boarhound lifted its head and growled at me.

“You can’t bring dogs into the third Room,” I objected.

“Can’t you?”

“It’s against the rules.”

“Then the rules are silly,” she said, licking the end of her silk before threading her needle. “You wanted to talk to me about something.”

I stood up. This wasn’t right. I headed for the door, which wasn’t there.

Father Anthemius taught me how to make a door. The shameful fact is, I was a slow beginner. All the other kids could do it, I couldn’t. Not for want of trying; but it’s one of those things where effort is useless, bordering on counter-productive; like falling asleep, the more you try, the less you succeed. It’s easy, they all told me, you just think of a door and there it is.

So I thought of a door, and there one wasn’t. All right, they said, try this. Think of a door, but you can only see it out of the corner of your eye. Didn’t work. So they explained to me about peripheral vision, and how you can see things without looking straight at them. Made no difference. I was ashamed and desperate. If I couldn’t make a door, I couldn’t learn anything else, they’d have to send me home, back to a two-room shack in the Mesoge. I wasn’t having that. In all other respects I was well in advance of the rest of my year and I’d already sneaked a look at the basic military Forms in the textbook. I reckoned ruans in defectum standing in front of a mirror would do the trick nicely, and there wouldn’t be enough of a body left to be worth shipping home.

Enter Father Anthemius. He had retired from the teaching staff the year before I arrived and nobody was sorry to see him go. He was a miserable old bastard who hated kids, and he’d only got into teaching because he couldn’t make the field grades, which was all he’d ever wanted to do. His students had hated him, partly because he was hypercritical, judgemental, and mean, partly because of his habit of farting loudly during tutorials; the smell, they told me, had to be experienced to be believed. He found me in a corner of the cloister, crying my eyes out. He looked at me.

“You’re pathetic,” he said.

I looked up at him. “I know,” I said.

He sighed. A stupid little kid bawling like a girl because he couldn’t do the simplest thing in the syllabus. “You’re trying too hard,” he said.

“I know.”

“No bloody good you knowing if you keep on doing it.” He slapped my mind with eget regimine and I squealed, which made him even angrier. “You’re disgusting,” he said. “The sooner they throw you out and you go back to mucking out pigs, the better for all of us. They shouldn’t let you people in here in the first place. You’re no good for anything.”

I think he was trying to provoke me. He could see I knew some military forms, and if I lashed out with one of them he’d be justified in blasting me till I glowed. He filled my head with bees and locusts so I couldn’t think, then started up again with eget regimine. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it; they call it the teacher’s friend, because it hurts like hell but leaves no marks or traces whatsoever. I tried to get up and run, but he’d locked me down with something or other that made me feel like the whole building was pressing down on me. I could hardly breathe. He was grinning at me, and I felt him inserting something into my mind; memories, false ones, about having fits when I was a baby. Clever; he’d crush me until a blood vessel burst and I had a stroke, and when they looked inside my head they’d find memories of similar attacks going right back through my life. I wasn’t sure why he hated me as much as he did, but there was no doubt in my mind at all. Something about me was so objectionable that I couldn’t be allowed to continue, and he was going to see to it that I didn’t. I felt his hand pass through my skull, feeling for the vein he was going to pinch shut. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a door. I jumped to my feet, wrenched it open, tumbled through, slammed it shut, and collapsed.

“See?” said a voice. “Nothing to it, really.”

I looked up. Father Anthemius was sitting in a carved oak chair with his feet up on a footstool. “This,” he said, “is the third Room. Most kids your age wouldn’t make it this far, but you’re precocious.”

I turned my head and looked at what I was leaning against; a massive oak door, studded with nails, like you see in castles. The nails are clenched over to hold the plies of wood together. You lay six plies with the direction of the grain alternating at right angles. A door made that way is practically unbreakable, even with a battering ram.

“You came here because it’s safe,” he said. “Once that door’s shut, nothing can get in unless you want it to. Nobody taught you that, you figured it out all by yourself.”

“I made a door?”

He laughed. “I certainly didn’t, so you must have, mustn’t you? I told you it was easy.”

I lashed out at him with ruat caelum. He swatted it aside. “Too slow,” he said. “Do it again.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what I was—“

“Do it again.”

Nobody taught me ruat caelum. I do it better than anyone else in the world. I’d been practising it for years on birds, flies, anything really small and fast, before I found out it was called that. To do it right you have to focus on a pinprick. I narrowed everything right down and let him have it. But he wasn’t there.

I stared. Had I hit him so hard he’d completely disintegrated? But then a door opened in the wall and he stepped through. “Which proves my point,” he said, sitting down and putting his feet up. “Rooms are everything. Doesn’t matter that you’re faster than anyone else I’ve ever seen. All I have to do is go next door and you can’t touch me.”

I felt as though a tap had been opened and my soul drained out of it. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I got mad.”

“Of course you did,” he said. “You were angry with me, instead of yourself. And before that you were afraid of me, instead of afraid of failing. You could be good at this. But you won’t ever be unless you stop feeling sorry for yourself all the damn time.” He stood up. “Like I said, you’re pathetic. If I hadn’t taken pity on you, you could’ve gone on trying the rest of your life and never got there. Lucky for you I’m such a sweetheart.” He stood up. “Till we meet again,” he said. Then he walked through the door he’d made and closed it behind him, and I was sitting alone on a stone bench on the cloister. I never saw him again; he died that afternoon. I didn’t find out he died until a week later. Apparently he was born at Spire Cross in the Mesoge, just a few miles downhill from where I used to live. Small world.

Anyway, the point is, ever since then I’ve been really good at doors. I can make one in a flash, and my doors go to places my esteemed colleagues would never dream of being able to reach. It’s the one thing I’m supremely good at. Hopeless at many things, good at doors, that’s me.

I tried to make a door. Nothing happened.

She yawned. “You can try again if you like. Won’t do you any good. This is my place. I’m in control here.”

I fixed my eyes on her so she was the centre of my field of vision. At the edge there should be, had to be, a door. There wasn’t.

“You’re pathetic,” she said. “Did you know that?”

“Actually, yes,” I said. “Let me out of here right now, or I’ll kill you.”

She smiled. “I wouldn’t,” she said. “I’m sure you could, you’re so much bigger and stronger and more aggressive than me, but then you’d be stuck in here for ever and ever, since you can’t make doors. Of course you wouldn’t be entirely on your own, you’d have the dog for company. But he farts. It can be pretty unbearable in a confined space, believe me.”

That draining feeling I told you about. Only the second time in my life I’d experienced it, but once endured, never forgotten. “Fine,” I said. “You win.”

She clapped her hands together in girlish glee. “Do I really? How nice.” I felt a searing pain in the backs of my knees, as though someone had cut the tendons. Then I slumped forward, kneeling before her. I couldn’t feel my feet at all. “Now then,” she said. “The thing is, I don’t know how to do the next bit, never having been to college. But that doesn’t matter, because you do.” She smiled. “Much better really,” she said. “Why should I give up years and years of my life sitting in draughty libraries learning stupid old theory when all I actually need to do is open up your head, and there it all is, ready for me to use?”

My head was splitting; now there’s a coincidence. “It doesn’t work like that,” I said.

“Doesn’t it?” She reached out and picked up a book, the only one in the room. She opened it, and I screamed. It was as though she’d pulled the two halves of my skull apart, like opening a clam. “What a pity. No, you’re wrong, here it all is.” She ran a finger down the page. “Chapter six, how to steal someone’s mind.” She turned a few pages. “Doesn’t look too hard. Shall we have a go?”

I slashed at her with stricto ense. She parried with the cover of the book. I yelled and clamped my hand round the gash in my cheek. Blood was gushing between my fingers.

“Let’s see,” she said, turning a page. “It’s all pretty straightforward by the look of it. Stands to reason, really. If it was hard, you couldn’t do it.”

Desperately I tried to remember about Room theory, but I couldn’t.

“I feel a bit guilty,” she said, as I felt my mind emptying. “Playing all those nasty pranks on my neighbours. They’re stupid and dull as chicken broth but there’s no real malice in them. But it was worth it, to get you down here. I knew it was the only way. I’d never be able to go to your stupid college or read your stupid books, so all this wonderful talent I’ve been given would just go to waste, and where’s the sense in that? But then I thought, what’s a book? It’s the inside of someone’s head put down on paper so anyone can see it, and it’ll never, ever die. Do you know I can’t read? Women don’t, not even delicately nurtured ones like me, it’s not ladylike. So it’s just as well I’ve got a wise, clever man like you to do it for me.”

“Please,” I said. “Don’t.”

She looked at me over the top of the book. “You’re pathetic,” she said, and carried on reading.

I tried ruat caelum, which I’ve known since I was thirteen years old. I couldn’t remember it. I tried to think of a Form, any bloody Form. They’d all gone. She looked up and folded down the corner of a page. The pain made me howl like a dog, and the boarhound lifted its head off its paws and growled again. “Don’t set him off,” she said, “or he’ll start barking.”

And he farts, I know, you told me. I could feel slices of myself falling away like apple-peel in spirals, things that had been a part of me before I was truly myself. Meanwhile she read, calm and steady, and each time she turned the page I screamed, and she took no notice.

“I don’t know what you’re making all that fuss about,” she said. “Anyone would think I was skinning you alive. It’s only knowledge, after all. When I’m done I shall turn you loose, and then you can live the rest of your life the way I’m supposed to live mine. I think that’s only fair, don’t you?”

I didn’t have the strength to argue, or the words or the wit to argue with, or even enough understanding to know if she was right or wrong. The only argument left was strength; she was strong and I was weak, so presumably everything she was doing to me was just fine and exactly how it ought to be. I can live with that, I remember thinking; it’s so simple even I can understand it, and if it pleases her to spare my life and let me crawl away, I’ll be grateful and worship her for her goodness and loving kindness.

She knew what I was thinking, of course. “You’re pathetic,” she said. “But I guess you know that.”

“I’d sort of gathered.”

That made her laugh. “You’re just a book, see?” She held up the book. She had it upside down. “All those clever men spent years copying things into you, and now I’ve copied them out again. Actually, not copied.” She grinned. “A real book must be a wonderful thing. It can be read over and over again and it’s not diminished. You’re not a book after all, you’re just a barn.”

“Make your mind up,” I said. It cost me the last of my strength. One last wisecrack and now I’d be stupid for ever. Ah well. Everything was, no doubt, all for the best.

“I ought to thank you,” she said. It was one of those books that has clasps and a hasp for a tiny lock. “But screw that. The hawk doesn’t thank the sparrow, because it’s rude to talk with your mouth full. All right, you can go now. I don’t need you any more.”

A door opened and swung wide. She wasn’t looking at me. She had her nose in the book. I tried to stand up, but my legs were numb, so I started to crawl toward the door, pulling myself along with my elbows. I had a horrible feeling that I wasn’t going to like what lay on the other side of that door. The sort of life she’d have had if she’d been born normal, without the talent. I’ve come across some terrifying things over the years, inside Rooms and out of them, but nothing quite as bad as that. We use the phrase fate worse than death frivolously, like children playing with a spear they found in a corner of the barn; but there are things much worse than simply being dead, and a life like that would be one of them. Somehow, though, I didn’t seem to have a choice. She was just stronger than me, that was all.

The boarhound lifted its head again and made that ominous grinding noise. I pulled myself a few inches closer to the door, and the boarhound sprang up and leapt at me—over me—

I turned my head in time to see her on the ground, the huge dog standing over her, worrying at her neck locked between its jaws. It used its shoulders and back to rip her throat out; a quick, spasmodic movement, a snatch. It’s rude to snatch, my mother used to tell me. Now I could see why.

The dog lifted its head and swallowed, two big gulps, all gone. She’d stopped moving. The dog sat up straight and farted.

It was really bad, enough to make your eyes water. When they cleared and I could see again, Father Anthemius was sitting in a chair. The room was different. There was a big, broad table covered in clutter—rolls of paper, books, empty cups, chunks of mouldy stale bread, rat droppings—and a fireplace. The fire was lit. That room was always too hot, I remembered people telling me. What with the heat and the godawful smell, how was anybody expected to learn anything?

He was reading a book. He closed it, looked at me, and tossed it into the fire. The pain, which was worse than anything I’d ever felt before, lasted as long as it took the book to burn. He reached over with the poker and pounded the dove-grey ashes into dust, then looked at me.

“Well?” he said.

I nodded. It was all back again, everything she’d taken from me. I felt as though I’d had a big brush, like the sort sweeps use to clean chimneys, shoved down my throat and pushed really hard until it came out through my arse. “I saved your life,” he said. “Again. You’re pathetic. But you know that.”

“Yes.”

“Obviously I didn’t do it for your sake,” he went on. “You’re worthless. I did it simply in order to survive. If you were stripped of your talent, where would I go? I would be lost, like the only copy of a book burnt in a fire. That would be a tragedy. Naturally, I couldn’t allow it to happen.”

“Naturally.”

“Even so,” said Father Anthemius, “I suppose I owe you a certain degree of gratitude. Don’t you think?”

I nodded. “You were dying,” I said.

“I was,” said Father Anthemius.

“You knew you didn’t have long. It made you angry.”

“Very angry. If there’s one form of vandalism I can’t stand, it’s burning books.”

I reckoned I could afford one wan smile. “Quite,” I said. “You’d spent your entire life writing all that learning and wisdom into a book, and the moment you write the last word, it’s snatched away from you and thrown into the fire. Where’s the sense in that?”

He nodded. “I don’t mind cruelty,” he said, “But I can’t abide waste.”

“So,” I went on, “you considered Room theory. It’s always been your best thing. Whenever there’s any danger, you just duck into another room. You showed me that, when I got angry.”

“Fancy you remembering.”

“You saw me,” I went on. “And you saw that I was—“

“Defective,” said Father Anthemius. “Or would you prefer inadequate?”

“Defective, thank you. You saw I wasn’t capable of making a door. I could do Forms and other stuff, but I was missing the ability to make a door, which meant I could never progress any further, or qualify, or be a practitioner. Which meant they’d throw me out of the Studium and I’d have to go back to the Mesoge and spend the rest of my life ploughing and herding pigs.”

“Actual useful work.” He grinned. “Perish the thought.”

“So you pretended to teach me how to make a door,” I said. “But that’s not what you did. You got me scared out of my wits so I wouldn’t see what you were doing—“

“Like a fly,” he said, “laying its eggs in a wound. A dreadful thing for a man of my distinction, but what choice did I have?”

“You turned my head—me—into a Room,” I said. “Your body died, but you weren’t in it. You were—”

“Plenty of space in there,” he said, “which you weren’t ever going to use. Admit it, I’ve been as quiet as a little mouse. You never even knew I was there. And thanks to me, you became a great wise scholar, which you never ought to have done.”

The maggots of wisdom, I thought, gnawing away at me and building nests of scholarship in the holes they’d made.

“Without me,” said Father Anthemius, “you were pathetic. You were as weak and useless as a woman. Actually,” he added, “I take that back. I was tempted, you realise. She was so strong, more natural untrained ability than I’ve ever seen in one human being in my entire life. I could have slipped into her mind and she’d never have known I was there, and I’d have had access to more strength, more sheer ability than I’d ever thought was possible.” He shook his head. “But she was still a woman,” he said. “Even with me to guide her, nobody would ever have taken her seriously. And then what? She’d have ended up making war on the whole world, like she did on the people in her silly little village, out of frustration and sheer spite. I hate waste,” he said. “I would’ve been wasted on her. So I decided to stay with you, even though you’re pathetic.”

But very good at Forms nonetheless. I formed stricto ense in my mind and aimed it at him. He smiled at me. “Sure,” he said. “Go ahead. You kill me, I die, you’ll never be able to make another door as long as you live. Well, get on with it. I’m waiting.”

That was a long time ago. He’s still waiting.

I met the mayor and the constable on my way out of the village. All done, I told them.

“You found out who it was?”

I nodded.

“Who was it?”

I took a deep breath. “Tell you what,” I said. “Give it a week, then ask around. Whoever hasn’t been seen for a week, that’s who it was. All right?”

They wanted to ask me questions, buy me a drink, hold a parade, give me money, put up a statue, make speeches, rename the village after me, all that sort of thing. Go away, I told them. I just want to get out of the horrible Mesoge. I think I offended them. So what?

I can raise the dead. Not that I ever would, it goes without saying, because it’s absolutely forbidden. Actually, I always assumed that was a convenient cop-out on the part of the profession—yes, we could do it, of course we could, we can do anything. But we don’t, because it’s illegal and unethical, so you’ll never know if we’re telling the truth or not. Big deal.

But yes, I can do it. Crazy, really. I can call back the dead, take those ashes and that dust and turn them back into pages. I can unburn books, but I can’t make a simple door. A bit pathetic, really, but there you go.

And it was the Mesoge, for God’s sake. There was nobody to see me do it, and if someone did see, nobody would ever believe them, because all country people are superstitious idiots, everybody knows that. A talking rat with LIAR branded on its forehead would stand more chance of being taken seriously by my esteemed colleagues at the Studium than anyone born within fifteen miles of Spire Cross. So why not?

I won’t tell you the Form, not that it really matters. What matters is standing in the narrow passage off which opens the door to the seventh Room. I’d been there before, but this time I was all too painfully aware that he was there with me. I couldn’t see him, but the lingering stench of dog fart was unmistakable. Never mind. I knocked on the door. “Come in,” she said.

She was sitting in front of the fire, embroidering something. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

I stood in the doorway. Believe it or not, I was in no tearing hurry to go fully inside the seventh Room. You’re all right if you have one foot firmly planted in the passageway, or so they tell me. How they would know that I have no idea.

“Don’t give me that look,” I said. “I didn’t kill you.”

“No, your dog did. Big difference.”

I grinned. “Actually, I think it’s a moot point whose dog was whose, if you see what I mean. You go through life thinking you’re the owner and it’s the dog, and then you realise, who’s actually walking who?”

She gazed at me. “You’re an idiot,” she said.

“I suppose I must be,” I replied. “All that time and I never realised. How about you?”

“Oh, I always knew, right from the start. I knew I was better than everybody else in the whole world, but they wouldn’t let me be myself.”

“So you took to sticking pins in people. To show them how much better you were.”

She shrugged. “Not through choice. If I’d been allowed to use my gifts and realise my true potential, it’d have been thunderbolts, not pins.”

“What did they ever do to deserve it?”

“What did you ever do to deserve what you’ve got and I could never have?” She put down her needlework and took in the room with a wide, circling gesture. “I spent my whole life stuck in this place,” she said. “And now I’m dead, and look where I end up.”

The Mesoge, I thought. It’s where you go when you die, if you’ve been really bad. Or you’re born there; same difference. The Mesoge is where I belong.

Just because I can do something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that I want to. Or that I should. Besides; giving her back a life like hers—I don’t think I could be that cruel.

So I left her to her vengeful wallowing, which I regarded as pathetic, and went back to the third Room. But I couldn’t stay there for more than a minute, because of the smell.

#K.J. Parker #short story #long post #Many Mansons

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meganmackieauthor · 6 months

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I Can't Get the Vampire Rogue to Romance Me - Ch 10

Evangeline forced herself to smile. This part wasn’t in the game, though it was on point for Valerian. He needed allies and seducing them was his go-to method of acquiring them. Evangeline had always focused on the fact that the ally he tried to seduce first was her … because the player character was always the most powerful in the whole group. Not in terms of within the rules of the game, of course, but because, naturally, the player character did make all the decisions for the group. They were the player after all.

But he couldn’t know that, and she wasn’t sure that was true now in the very real-seeming context.

As if the world around them was emphasizing the point, a beam of sunlight shot down from through the canopy above, hitting him in all his chiseled glory. Like a houseplant, the light froze Valerian in place, at first like he feared it would destroy him, which made sense, he was a vampire childer after all.

But when he didn’t collapse into a pile burning ash, his muscles uncoiled as his face lifted towards it. Though the light had to be blinding him, he drank it in, closing his eyes as his pale skin bathed in it. It was actually beautiful to behold, the way he submitted himself to the light with such child-like wonder. As she watched him, her eyes were drawn to the black amulet hanging from his neck, along with the collars they all were forced to wear. It was starkly clear against the muscles of his chest, a black sun framed by a silver crescent moon. At the heart of the sun was a black-red gem, cut smooth so that it blended into the metal of the amulet.

Meta Knowledge: Activated.

The Amulet of the Midnight Sun. A legendary item. If the wearer is a vampire, it bestows immunity to the sun, the ability to cross thresholds, the ability to cross running water, the immunity to silver-coated items. Also, it bestows the inability to regenerate health as well as -1 to all abilities, except Constitution which receives two less.

There were a few other caveats to the amulet, but Evangeline didn’t have to focus on that information as it simply flooded into her brain. Glancing over at her personal table, still floating beside her where she first saw it, she noted that one of the Special: Meta Knowledge tics was gone.

“Dammit,” she muttered, then realized she wasn’t alone.

Valerian regarded her patiently. “Everything alright?” he asked.

That made her consider. Did he see a table like hers too? And did she dare to trust him enough to ask him some questions, or would he think her crazy? Was this something only she could see since was technically the “player” character?

When she bit her lower lip debating, he squatted down beside her, putting his grinning face even closer, the amulet around his neck swinging back and forth. “I’d like to be of help if I can.”

Dammit.

“You know the … table thing … the one with all our stats on it?”

He nodded. “Indeed. What about it?”

A huge wash of relief cascaded down her. “Oh, thank god, you have one too.”

Now he cocked an eyebrow at her. “Naturally. Everyone does. What are you getting at?”

“Well, I keep doing something that I don’t want to do, and I can’t figure out how to stop it,” she said, turning to point at her table. “My special skill ability, it keeps firing, and I only have so many tics before it’s gone for the day. I think…” Then she realized something, her eyebrows shooting up. “Oh, maybe that’s related to my memory issues last night. I kept feeling like there was something I couldn’t remember and now, this morning, I do. So I think it has something to do with my Special Ability when it’s out of tics. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“Uh, no. I don’t,” Valerian said, which threw cold water on her enthusiasm.

“Oh… what? Sorry,” she said, embarrassment burning her cheeks. Why was she always so bad at talking to other people?

Valerian’s eyebrow lift shifted to the other side of his face as he struggled to understand. “Apologies, I was only teasing your choice of words. I do see what you’re saying. So you’re greener than I think you wanted me to realize, aren’t you? You haven’t had your Special Ability very long?”

“Uh, no. I mean, yes, you could say that.” Evangeline forced herself to take a deep breath to try to calm down. “Just … do you have any ideas?”

“Yes, I do. You need to turn your Special Ability from passive to active. That way it only fires when you want it to. Out of curiosity, what is your special skill?” Valerian asked so smoothly that Evangeline almost outright told him.

“I… uh… well what is yours?” she countered not nearly as smoothly.

His smile grew toothy, revealing his slightly extra-long canines. He gave a little sigh. “First, what color is the text of your Special Ability?”

She glanced at it. “White.”

“Okay, good. Yes, it’s in passive mode. Press your finger to it until it turns blue.”

“Oh. Right,” she said, swallowing back the stupid question of “Oh, I can touch it?” Instead, she followed his instructions, and sure enough, the text double-blinked and then shifted to blue. She nodded with optimistic satisfaction. “Okay, that worked!”

“Good. Now you want to set a code word for yourself so you can activate it when you need to.”

“Uh, okay… How… how do I do that?”

Now he sighed in exasperation. “Just pick one and remember that’s what you mean when you say it.”

“Ah, ok. Of course, right,” she said, deciding she had asked enough newbie questions for the moment. “Thank you for the help.”

He nodded and stood up, towering his lithe, but strong form over her. That prey feeling washed over her again, even more strongly than anything he ever did on the screen in her living room. Real life was definitely more… just more.

“Like I said last night. You should think about another career choice. I clearly am the superior rogue here. You’re going to be redundant. At least you are newbie enough that you can change jobs and it won’t even set you back that much.”

Then he sauntered away.

“What an ass.”

To be continued...

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#baldur's gate 3 #litrpg #meganmackie #baldur's gate iii #dnd fanfiction #fanfic

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badmusejail · 2 years

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---Gaster felt heavy.

It was a deep weight that pierced his bones; a sort of heaviness that he'd only felt a few times in his life; like the sort that followed an out of control night of partying, or the sort of strange unreality that accompanied a dream.

This didn't feel like a dream, though; in fact, he was laying on something quite hard, his face pressed against it, legs crumpled behind him, arms splayed around him. Hard, and cold, and wet, at least around his face, under his cheek; too much to be tears, but his mind, too sluggish, too tired, too numb couldn't begin to guess what it was.

First, he forced his fingers to move; sliding against the metal underneath him.

A breath. A pause. A shudder.

His hands curled into loose fists and with trembling effort, he pushed his weight onto his arms, sat up and immediately toppled to the side, landing with a faint oof against-- a chair.

Yes.

In the ship.

His vision was a kaleidoscope of colors, incomprehensible despite his repeated blinking and his breathing was uneven.

He felt like he was suffocating...

He rolled his head back, eyes fluttering shut.

In, out.

He was cold.

It's a sharp and sudden realization--given his biology (or lack of, depending on your view) he didn't get cold often, but being suspended in the middle of the vast emptiness of space in a ship with no real heating capabilities would do it.

How long before he died here?

He needed to get out of here.

He's so tired...

In fact, he could quite easily go to sleep... it'd be peaceful, right?

A sensation of something crawling up his spine.

It's enough to make him jolt upwards, fingers digging into the chair beside him, eyes popping open and breath stilling.

There's nothing there.

Nothing but a phantom sensation. A hallucination brought upon by the maddening isolation of space.

Focus.

His vision comes into view; blurred, but workable; and noticeably dim; smeared with colors here and there, and a hand lifted to rub at his right eye.

Immediately, his fingers come into contact with something wet and he flinched back, withdrawing with some dizziness to stare down at his fingertips. Something black...

There's a distinct lack of a reaction, eyes blankly staring at the substance before drifting up to look at the cockpit, or what was left of it.

What the hell happened here?

The windshield was cracked, vertically, almost perfectly, as if from some external pressure. The ceiling too was cracked bowing inwards as if a great weight had been on top the ship.

Scorch marks littered the floor and control panels, and one of the chairs was entirely separated from the floor, laying on its side a few feet away.

Large slashes were visible on the walls, the chairs, and the equipment, and Gaster would be surprised if any of it still worked. One of the standard issue blasters was laying on the floor.

Where was the crew?

He could look in back, but something told him it would be pointless.

A shuddering breath as eyes drift shut. Gaster knew he needed to do something, but what?

Goal: He needed to get home.

How to accomplish that? ...Debatable.

But panicking, or going to sleep, or doing nothing wouldn't help. The first thing he needed to do was get up. Survey the damage, figure out what was salvageable. Find a way to either call for help, or navigate to a friendly planet.

Good. Good. Steady.

He placed a hand on the chair he was collapsed against. He focused his breathing; focused on the flow of magic from his SOUL throughout his body, and rose to his feet. The swivel of the chair nearly posed a problem, but his magic instinctually steadied it and in a moment, he was standing without support.

The cockpit didn't look any different when he opened his eyes this time. His vision was still blurred and once again, he lifted a hand to rub at his right eye, withdrawing with some disgust as he once again put his fingers into that strange viscous substance. Looking about the room, his gaze fell upon a screen that was off; thus in the blackness able to act as a makeshift mirror. He stumbled over to it, nearly crashing into the dashboard, and the sight made him nauseated.

His right eye was virtually gone, the bone above caved in from what almost certainly had to have been some sort of blunt force trauma. A huge crack extended upwards, curving back behind his skull, and nearly separating that hemisphere from his head. The entire right side of his skull was sunken in, littered with cracks that varied from minor to chasmic. And that black substance leaked from it, seeped out between the cracks and dripped down his face.

Gaster stepped away, adverting his gaze, a hand coming up to press against his mouth as he suppressed the wave of illness that surged through his SOUL.

So it was obvious now why his vision was messed up, and likely also why he couldn't remember what happened. But how the hell was he not in agonizing pain?

In fact, his head throbbed just knowing about the wound, fingers creeping up to feel and confirm what he had seen.

He winced and forced himself to leave it alone for the time being. He knew he'd need to clean and treat the wound, somehow, but...

Hell, he didn't know.

Fear, exhaustion, anxiety, and a tsunami of other emotions were beginning to creep at the edge of his awareness, just barely held at bay by the phenomenal power of adrenaline.

Gaster let himself fall into the chair for now. He rested his arms on the arm rests, trying to ignore how badly he was trembling. He didn't know what happened, he didn't know where he was, he didn't know how to get home. Clearly something catastrophic had happened, and Gaster would even be inclined to say they were attacked, but...

By who?

Why?

Who in the universe could possibly have the technology to intercept a ship in hyperspace and then leave without a trace?

And surely anyone who could do that would have no need for the experimental technology on board this ship.

Gaster made a light noise of confusion when his foot comes to rest on something. Blinking, he groggily sat up, peered beneath him.

A cell phone.

He bent down to take it in hand, careful to stabilize himself against the chair. Nudging the button, the screen flickered to life; cracked, but still visible was Marlese's daughter, in her basketball uniform.

Gaster slumped back in the chair, arms falling listlessly beside him.

My god, what have I done?

#|| gaster | chorus of nothing.#|| shared | verse | space.#|| shared | headcanon | space.#body horror cw #gore cw #eye horror cw

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thekittytat · 2 years

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Animal

One Shot Smut

Dom!Eddie Munson x Fem Reader

No but this smile makes me WEAK and this is how he looks at you in this story⬇️

Summary: You’ve been increasingly angsty lately, so you go in search of something to help you escape. Turns out the overly dramatic metal head from your school sells stronger substances than you could normally get your hands on. But you better be sure you bring enough cash, or you might have to pay him some other way…Yes, exactly like one of those sleazy 80’s porn flicks.

Warnings: Much Smut 18+ Dom DrugDealer!Eddie x Fem Reader. Mentions of hard drugs, narcotics, alcohol, public sex, cheating, shy reader, secret slutty reader, popular reader, vulgar language, pet names, unprotected p in v sex, creampie, breeding if you squint (it’s v animalistic) Porn w very little plot.

Song Inspiration: Animal (Fuck Like a Beast) by W.A.S.P.

“I do whatever I want to, to ya

I'll nail your ass to the sheets

A pelvic thrust and the sweat starts to sting ya

I fuck like a beast”

Word Count: 3.1k

Fuck. Everyone had been getting on your goddamn nerves more than usual lately. Your prim and proper parents were harassing you about the one B you received in science, scolding you for being 'provocative’ by wearing too much makeup (it was light blush and mascara), and by daring to wind down with your friends once in awhile. Granted, they had no idea who your real friends were as they would blow a gasket if they knew how you spent many of your weekends under the overpass smoking cigarettes and weed with some of the local dirtbag kids and the hopeless junkies in your town who go there to get high.

Even your white bread, conventional boyfriend had been getting onto you about your pent up rage and choosing to partake in foreign substances to release it. He would drink with you at parties, but he was always the one who made you stop when you were starting to really have fun. ‘Just loosen up once in awhile, Jake. Jesus Christ,’ you would find yourself thinking bitterly. You couldn't take it anymore. Sure, your guilty pleasures aren’t exactly healthy, but you’ve been forced to conform to the monotonous life of your family and peers for so long that you were aching for something to help you escape.

You had heard of this guy in your school who sells more than weed and decided to hit him up for some uppers to try and channel that high into focusing on studying for the midterm. Your friend told you how to contact him, and before the day was up, you had discreetly dropped a note into his locker telling him your desires and the locker to which he could send the response. Your heart leapt when after your very next class, there was already a note in your locker signed by ‘E. M.’ and scribbled with instructions to meet him in the back of the library after school.

E. M. Eddie Munson. The kid who often caused a scene in the cafeteria or classes with his ruckus outbursts and theatrical lectures about one issue or another? Figures. He was intimidating with his dramatic personality and his overall appearance, but that sent flutters to your lower stomach as you thought about meeting with him face to face—alone. So you spent your last period of the day fidgeting nervously and not paying any attention to the lesson. When the bell finally rang, you headed for the bathroom to freshen yourself up while you waited for the hallways to clear a bit before you made your way down to the library.

It was pretty deserted by the time you arrived, with only a couple students at the front few tables looking through refrence books for whatever projects they had. The librarian was always occupied at the front organizing returned books or in her office, so the back aisle of the library had become the designated spot for drug deals and make out sessions. You tried to make yourself as small and quiet as possible as you slipped in through the library door and made your way down the side wall towards the back. No one paid you any mind so you were in the clear. As you rounded the corner to the back, your stomach flipped at the sight of Eddie leaning against the back book shelf and casually doing tricks with his switchblade.

He gave you a quick nod of welcome and flashed you with a knee buckling smile when he noticed you approaching. God, he looked good. His ripped black jeans sagged just a bit around his hips, despite the belt around them. You reckoned it was only there for show as he had hooked a decorative assortment of chains onto the metal rings on the belt, with little handcuffs serving as the clips. His dark mane of hair hung wildly around his shoulders in a very Eddie Van Halen way. Hah, funny coincidence. And, oh shit, was that a Mötley Crüe tee? They were pretty infamous in the rock and metal scene for being chaotic menaces always at the center of controversy.

As you got closer you noticed he had a few tattoos on his arms. Who the fuck would tattoo a teenager in this small town? You knew he was in a band, and he really embodied the rock star persona, from his look, to his mannerisms and attitude. Your heart raced being in his presence just by how chill he seemed, and you tried your best to match his laid back demeanor. You stopped in front of him, fiddling with the hem on the long sleeves of your sweater nervously as you raised your head to peer into his dark brown eyes. His gaze was captivating and rendered you speechless as he looked you up and down.

“So, what can I help you with, sweetheart?” Eddie grinned down at you in amusement. Sweetheart? Shit.

“I uh…I’m just looking for something maybe…to help, I don't know…” you trailed off as you glanced around anxiously looking for the words. “Something…like, an upper…or something?”

He seemed entertained by your shyness with the way he was eyeing you. You blinked back up at him to gauge his reaction and he was merely taking in your appearance with a smug expression on his face, the lines bordering his mouth etched deeply around his smile.

“What, like H?” he teased with a wide smirk. You gasped at him incredulously as you hugged your torso. As if you can be mistaken for some junkie? What about your pleated white skirt, your cashmere sweater and the white gold chain around your neck screamed ‘heroin?'

“No! Of course not! Not that strong! Just, maybe…something, stimulating?” you whispered urgently. He gave you a humorous chuckle at your exasperated reaction before looking up above you in faux contemplation.

“Alright, mama. I think I got what you need,” Eddie said when he looked back down into your eyes. He pushed himself off the bookshelf and turned around to where he had stored his metal lunchbox between some books. He reached in and pulled out a small Ziploc bag of round, white pills. “It’s uh, not quite smack, but it will make an impression.”

“W-What is it?” you asked timidly. You looked from the bag to Eddie, shifting your feet nervously. He raised his brows and looked at the pills in his hand before readjusting his stance.

“Well, that is your good ole’ government sanctioned amphetamine used to treat ADHD,” he grinned. “But a hit of this will have you hyper focused on whatever you need. Just go easy with it, though. Otherwise you’ll be up all night scrubbing your bathroom tile with a toothbrush.”

You smiled back at him sweetly, still holding your arms close to yourself as you get lost in his sparkling brown eyes. But you noticed that his eyes were tracing the shape of your pretty lips before stealing glances down at your chest. Your sweater fit tightly around your body, highlighting your generously endowed breasts; and if you were showing any cleavage, he probably wouldn’t be able to look anywhere else. You watched his gaze as you brought your arms up higher to cross them over your chest to conceal yourself more, but you were probably only making his mind race more.

“So…um, how much is it?” you asked quietly.

“The tabs? Uhhh,” Eddie was torn from his train of thought with your words and he shifted his footing to think of a price. He stepped back to eye your body up and down and you looked around in embarrassment as you waited for his response. “Hmm, you’re pretty small so I’m gonna recommend no more than 5mg. So that’ll be, let’s see…call it $25 for the bag. Should last you awhile.”

Damn, you never pay more than like $10 at a time for your weed, but of course this would be more expensive than pot. So stupid. Well you couldn’t back out now, since it was already Friday and the midterm was on Monday.

“Fuck…um, I didn’t bring that much…but, I really need this,” you said desperately, biting your lip nervously as you avoid making eye contact with Eddie. “Would…do you think…that maybe I could pay you…some other way?

You shut your eyes in embarrassment for a moment before timidly raising your eyes to meet his. He was standing there leaning against the bookcase with crossed arms, looking down at you with the the most cocky expression on his face. Fuck. What was this? Some cheesy porno movie where the ditzy housewife orders a pizza but doesn’t ‘have enough to pay him?’ He probably thinks you’re just another slutty cokehead who gives it up to any drug dealer. Eddie’s eyes trailed down to where you were biting your lip in anticipation of his answer and it makes him have to shift his legs.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” he said softly as his eyes narrowed at you. Shit. That’s right. You mentally kicked yourself for not thinking this through.

“Yeah, but…well, he’s so…soft,” you blushed as your secret thoughts formed into words. “He never wants to try anything exciting, and I’m…bored. I want to break up with him, but he just gets so jealous…”

You hung your head in humiliation at just confessing your disinterest in your boyfriend in front of a practical stranger. Eddie looked past your shoulder with narrowed eyes and a quizzical expression for only a second before he nodded like he just came to some mental conclusion, and the corner of his mouth tilted in a wicked grin. He stepped towards you and boxed you in against the opposite bookshelf, his one hand leaning against the panel of the bookcase with the other reaching his heavily ringed fingers to peel one of your long strands of hair off the front of your shoulder and discarded it on the ground. You licked your lips in a seductive manner as you shyly maintained eye contact. He smelled so fucking good with his cologne mixed with cigarette smoke and whatever heavenly shampoo he used. You could feel your panties just drenching in your arousal as he leaned in close to your ear, lips just barely ghosting over your skin and his long curls tickling your neck.

“Well, I can fight,” he growled darkly, and with one swift movement he had turned you around to face the book shelf and swiftly flipped up your skirt to expose your panties. You gasped in surprise and mock protested his actions at first, but the warmth you felt spreading between your legs at his aggressive handling was very telling. Your hands were supporting your weight on the shelf in front of you, and the books were separated just enough so that you could peek in between them to guard that the coast was clear. As soon as Eddie had spun you around, he made quick work of his belt and zipper, and was now pushing the lace hem of your panties down your thighs and kicking your feet apart slightly so he could position himself between your legs..

You tucked your bottom lip under your teeth in excitement, your wetness practically dripping down your legs as you waited for his commanding hands to find their place. He shifted your hips where he needed them before gripping onto your shoulder with one hand, and lining himself up with your weeping entrance with the other. Shit. This is so fucking primal, why does this feel so good? You inhaled sharply as you felt his tip slip through your folds and settle between your legs. You had to stand on your tip toes to allow him access, which he reminded you by assertively lifting you up by your hips.

“Good, you’re already soaked,” Eddie mumbled.

With the one hand on your shoulder, he bent you over the shelf while his other slowly guided his length past your slit. You hummed weakly at the sensation, before gasping loudly at him suddenly filling you up and bottoming out completely. Holy shit, this was really happening. You were getting fucked like a wild animal by Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson on school property, all for some drugs. It’s so wrong but why does it feel so right? You could barely contain your hushed cries and moans with every snap of his hips.

“Shut the fuck up, you want to get caught?'“ Eddie hissed as he stilled in you and reached around your shoulder to cup his hand over your mouth. You shook your head quickly into his palm before he straightened back up behind you. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to collect yourself before Eddie sped up his rough pace into your cunt. He rocked into you with enough force that the shelf on which you were leaning was wobbling and the books swayed dangerously. You reached through to grip the shelf from the back side to steady yourself and hopefully the books as well.

You could hear his satisfied grunts behind you, sending a thrilling jolt to your lower extremities and making your walls flutter around his firm length. Your boyfriend never manhandled you like that, and now you weren’t sure if you could ever go back to the boring missionary, lovey-dovey style love making with him. The way Eddie claimed your body like that was better than any drug he had to sell, and you reckoned you would probably be back for more—with just enough money that you came up short and had to pay him this way again. His relentless thrusting was fogging your mind and starting to send you over the edge.

You brought one hand to your mouth and bit down on your finger to stifle the pleasured moans. You could tell that Eddie was only using your cunt to get himself off, but that realization excited you and lit a fire in your belly to come apart around his cock. Your walls clenched around him as your knees trembled, and you could hear his cocky laugh behind you quietly. As your vision returned, you were still relishing in the sensation of him slamming into you with his determined rhythm and your jaw slacked open at the feeling.

“Silly girl…pull yourself together before someone hears you,” Eddie whispered gruffly as he gave you a few slow, deliberate strokes that really emphasized his size. Your eyes crossed and your eyelids drooped at the euphoric intensity of him sinking into you over and over. He’s one to talk. He was slamming into you with enough vigor that the soft clapping sound of skin to skin contact reverberated around the back aisle of the library. But somehow you could not care less at that moment while Eddie buried his thick member into your very core. He fucked you like he had been isolated on a desert island for years—hungry and desperate and just aching for release.

You had lost track of time in your fucked-out state. Your vision was blurred of everything but Eddie Fucking Munson and you just settled for laying your cheek down onto the shelf where every thrust nudged your head back and forth. Your mouth had relaxed to where your tongue lay lopsided and your saliva began to pool underneath you, and you didn’t give a fuck. His energetic pounding was the most glorious sensation you’ve ever experienced. It was sending you into ecstasy again and you didn’t even attempt to stifle your noises. Eddie bent over you again and put his soft lips against the shell of your ear.

“If I hear another sound from you, I’ll have to stuff that mouth full, okay baby?” he mumbled into your ear, using both a teasing tone and a tone of authority. He pulled back and moved his hands to grasp your hips like an animal and continued his self fulfilling strokes with what seemed like limitless stamina. You squeezed your eyes shut and focused all your concentration on keeping quiet while he drilled into you. The tension you were applying to his rock hard member made his hips studder as the blinding pleasure of your muscle sent him into a daze. His thrusts began to slow as he started to dispense his entire load into your used cunt. He stilled his movements and held your hips tightly against his as he buried his whole length in you to pump you completely full of his seed.

You could feel both of your bodies relax as he continued to spill into you. Fuck, his cock was still flexing, like he was dumping dozens of ropes into your poor hole. You shivered around Eddie’s cock as he slowly pulled himself out of you, leaving you open to drip a combination of your fluids onto the carpet below. As soon as you could close your legs, you hiked your panties back up to contain his seed before it could run down your legs. You flattened out your skirt and readjusted your sweater and hair while Eddie stuffed his dick back into his boxers and zipped himself up. Oh, God. You just let him cum in you! You didn't even try to stop him, you desperate slut.

“Yeah, here’s the pills, but uh…you can keep the rest of the cash,” Eddie laughed awkwardly as he tussled his long hair while handing you the small baggie from the metal lunchbox. “That fuck was more than enough for me…Oh, and uh…tell your boyfriend I hope he enjoys my contribution.”

He winked at you with a wide grin before leaning in to capture your lips in his in a deep kiss. He placed the Ziploc into your fist and left without another glance, eyeing down the pathway to check and see if anyone was around. He then casually exited the aisle without another word and headed for the door to leave the library while you took a minute to readjust your clothing so you could leave as nonchalantly as possible. Hopefully his excess seed would stay contained in your underwear until you could make your way to the bathroom and get yourself cleaned up. God, if these pills made you feel even half as good as you felt right then, you’d be hooked for life.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! If you like my writing, check out my other works.

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sinner-as-saint · 3 years

Text

I saw you and I knew.

Biker!Bucky x Reader AU

Run-through: You met Bucky unexpectedly at an unfamiliar bar one night - one of your last nights of freedom before your parents marry you off to some rich, young man. Bucky happened to be so different from all the men you had dated or you were used to seeing that it was a little bit of a surprise how reckless and open he was. You had been subconsciously looking for a way out of the situation you were in for days, so when Bucky makes you a rather unusual proposal; you accept immediately. And it ends up being one of the best things you ever agreed to.

Themes: smut, fluff,

a/n: remember this Bucky? Yeah, me too.

The moment you stepped into the bar, you felt all eyes on you.

Not in a bad way, more like in an intrigued way.

A couple of steps in and you realized why; there was no one but bikers in this club. Large, built, mean looking men. But judging by the sound of laughter and the bouncers scattered around the room, you felt oddly safe in the environment.

You went up to the counter and ordered yourself a drink. Once you found a seat in the less crowded area of the bar, you settled in next to the large window pane; looking out at the passing cars while sipping on your drink. The sun would set soon so the sky was all pink, and-

You felt a tap on your shoulder. “This seat taken?” A male voice spoke up behind you.

You placed your bottle down and turned to face him. You were aware that you did stare at him for a while. How could you not? Dark, slightly long hair, worn out leather jacket, and tattoos… a lot of them, peeking through his collar and around his wrists. And a perfect face. He gave you a slight smirk when he noticed that you were checking him out but you soon recovered, your heart racing.

“No, it’s not.” You gestured to the seat across from you, which he then walked over to.

You watched him, how he moved so confidently. You kept watching as he placed his own beer down, and took his leather jacket off to reveal a loose, ripped t-shirt underneath, as well as his muscular arms; one of them metal and glistening in the dimmed lights of the bar. He folded the jacket carelessly into a ball and placed it down on the table before taking a seat in front of you, leaning back and placing his muscular, tattooed arm over the seat of the booth. You noticed his pierced ears then.

It almost felt like a strip show. He had barely said enough to you and you were already feeling a little hot, with him staring at you.

“I’ve never seen you around here before.” He said, and something about his ease, and the softness of his tone, despite his rather mean and dangerous appearance, chased away the little bit of awkwardness which was forming in between you too. It soon vanished.

You licked your lips and answered, “It’s my first time here actually.” You gave him a polite smile which he returned, giving you the same look that everyone gave you for the first nanoseconds you walked in - an intrigued look.

He leaned forward, and gently toyed with your car keys laying on the table top. You got a whiff of his scent. You expected him to smell like cigarettes but he smelt like some fading, strong and expensive cologne. Very manly. “You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Princess?”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him slightly, not minding the nickname. “How’d you know?”

He chuckled, and the sound echoed in your head. He sounded so boyish when he laughed, it warmed your heart for some reasons. Something about him screamed trouble, and recklessness and danger.

“You drive a Benz which no one here does, you’re drinking a martini while everyone is having cheap beers and you’re dressed like a classy lady in a place filled with leather and chains. So tell me, am I right?” He pointed out, his tone cocky and confident like one would expect.

You leaned back into your seat as well. “You’re judging me.” You pointed out. Funny, you thought you were somewhat blending in here with your little black dress - but clearly not.

He laughed again, making you crack a little smile. “Princess, look around. You don’t belong here. So tell me, what’s your story? How did you end up in a place like this?”

You sighed. “I was just… driving around, and I ran out of fuel not far from here. So I called for my chauffeur and didn’t want to wait by the side of the road until he arrived so I figured I could get a drink while waiting.”

He looked you dead in the eyes while you talked. Nodding at each bit of information. “I meant your real story, Princess. You drove a long way, why? I see it in your eyes. Something’s bothering you. What is it?”

He was reading you like you were his favorite book. And you found that quite… interesting because no one was ever able to do that normally. It felt intimate.

“And why should I tell you?”

“Because you want to. You need a friend, and I’m not half bad, am I?” Cocky, as expected.

You chuckled. “You won’t get it.”

He raised an eyebrow. A warning. “What is it? Your conservative and rich father won’t give you your pocket money in thousands this month?”

Despite the words, he managed to get yet another laugh out of you. “I earn my own money, thank you.”

“I’ll believe you. Then what is it? Your snobbish, rich playboy boyfriend is acting up?”

And yet another chuckle left your lips. “You seem to have issues with people who are well-off.”

He smirked. “Trust me, I don’t. I just want to figure you out.”

“Why?”

“Because your eyes are telling me that you’re sad. And that you’ve been contained for too long. You want to be freed. Am I wrong?”

Your lips parted at the accuracy of his words. “No, you’re not.” You lowered your eyes to the table, but he was quick to reach out with his metal arm and grab you gently by the chin. He tilted your head just enough so you could look at him.

“What is it, angel?” He asked softly.

“I… I don’t want to go home.” You whispered, your voice tired and low.

“Okay. Parents?” He spoke like he could relate.

You nodded and he gently let go of your face. “Parents.” You confirmed. “They want me to marry one of their friend’s son because according to them it’ll be good for the both of us. And you know, for each of the families’ businesses.”

He frowned. “You don’t like him, I assume.”

You sighed. “I don’t know him. He’s a good man according to my mother, who also hasn’t seen him since we were kids. Apparently I met him once or twice but I was too young back then to remember…” you sighed again, “It doesn’t matter anymore.” You shook your head, picking up your glass and taking yet another sip. “ Whoever he is, I can’t say no.”

He scoffed. “Yes you can.”

You chuckled, dryly. “You don’t understand. My dad will make my life a living hell if-,”

“Who cares what he thinks? He married the one he loved, didn’t he? Then why not let you find love on your own as well?” He did make sense.

You smiled sadly, thinking of your parents and their marriage. “I don’t think so.”

He stopped midway through picking his beer bottle up. “What?” he asked, then went back to picking it up again, bringing it to his pink lips.

“My dad. I don’t think he married out of love.” You let out a quiet scoff, “I don’t think my mom did either. They just realized that that would be the best for the both of them, I suppose. Now that I think about it, I don’t think they ever truly loved each other at any point.” You tilted your head while looking out at the passing cars out the window. “Mom always told me that marriage isn’t always about love, it’s about convenience.”

He let out a shameless chuckle. “I’m sorry, but what a bunch of bullshit! You believe her?” He asked in disbelief.

“It’s all I’ve ever been told all my life. Besides, I don’t have much of a choice anymore, might as well.”

He frowned at you, setting his bottle down to give you his full attention. “Come on, Princess. You can’t be serious. You can’t give up on love just because your parents did.”

That earned him a smile from you. “You sound like you know a lot about love.” You leaned forward, placing your elbow on the table, resting your chin on your fist. “It’s your turn, tell me, who has you under their unescapable love spell?” It was surprising how easy it was to talk to him. Almost felt like you had known him all your life.

He laughed again, that same boyish look on his face. “Nah, none of that. But I do know what it’s like to be contained, and I also know what it’s like to be finally free, with no worries about family pressure or expectations and let me tell you, Princess, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

That sounded exquisite. It sounded like… like everything you wanted right there and then. To not bother about what mom and dad might think and live for yourself for however long you wanted to.

“And what gives you that freedom? Riding down the highway at full speed on your mean bike?” You sassed.

You watched how his eyes lit up. “You’re right. And that’s exactly what you need, Princess. Come on, let’s go!”

Before you could process anything, he grabbed your hand and stood up. All you could do was quickly grab your purse and keys and you went along with him. You only realized what you were doing once you stepped outside.

“Wait! I- I…” You were stumbling over your words. A million thoughts rushing through your head all at once. And the piercing pair of blue eyes staring deep into yours weren’t helping at all.

He walked up to you. “It’s your life. They can’t tell you how to live it. You have every right to find love on your own, and if you don’t want to marry what’s his face then don’t. Parent or not, they can’t do that to you. Come on, let’s go before some old, broody chauffeur gets here.”

He tugged on your arm gently, walking towards the many bikes which were parked outside the bar.

“But, I- I’m supposed to leave tomorrow, to see the guy. I’m… I can’t just disappear. Where are we even going? I just met you and I- I don’t even know your name. Besides, you had alcohol. You can’t-,”

“Apple juice.” He stopped, and turned around to look at you. He repeated, “Apple juice. Don’t tell anyone.”

You looked at him like he was speaking another language. “What?”

“The bartender is a cool guy, I told him I don’t consume alcohol when I ride so he poured apple juice in beer bottles for me so that I can mingle with the crowd but also get home safe.” He explained.

You giggled uncontrollably at his answer and he lowered his blushing face. “That was funny, but I don’t believe you at all, I-,” you cut yourself off as you laughed; quite unladylike.

Without another word said, he circled his arm around you and pulled you into him, and his lips were on yours in less than a second. He kissed you deeply, thoroughly. Still gentle, but passionately. He held you by the neck with his metal hand and you melted in his embrace. You kissed him back and you heard a little moan escape his lips - sending shivers down your spine and making your heart flutter, and other places throb. He teased you by biting down on your lip, making you gasp as his tongue soothed it right after. He pulled you closer, pressing you against him even more, kissing you deeper if that was possible.

Your hands found themselves around his neck, your fingers sliding into his hair. He chuckled against your lips once he noticed that you were getting a little breathless. “Now tell me. What do I taste like, Princess?” He whispered against your lips, his voice sending shivers throughout your body.

Your face felt really hot at his question and only then did you realize that he did in fact taste tangy, and sweet. “Apple.”

He smiled against your lips before kissing you deeply again. “Told you. Now come on, trust me and let’s go. You can go home later tonight, or tomorrow morning. I’ll drop you wherever you wanna go. But right now, come with me.”

Fuck it.

“Yes.” You agreed. He gave you a big smile and tugged you along once again. You spoke up again. “And if you plan on killing me, just make it quick. Please. And don’t do weird things to me after I’m dead. Definitely do not feed me to animals, or humans for that matter. And don’t-”

He cut you off with another kiss once you reached his bike. “Shh.” He laughed. “I won’t do any of that. Now come on, put these on.” He handed you his jacket from earlier and a helmet.

You put those on quickly, not giving yourself the chance to overthink and prevent yourself from living a little. Once you climbed onto his bike, you realized that you would be pressed up against his back quite a bit. You didn’t mind it, it just made your heart race a little. His leather jacket felt nice and cool against your skin.

“Hold on tight, Princess. It won’t be that long of a ride. But it’ll be great, trust me.”

You nodded, and he chuckled at how adorable you looked with his huge, black helmet on. “Don’t kill us.”

“I won’t, angel.”

He kicked the engine to life. It roared so loudly that you couldn’t help but feel the adrenaline rush already. You giggled as he drove off, away from the pub, away from where you had left your car, away from where your chauffeur was supposed to pick you up. Away.

You felt the wind against your bare legs and parts of your face. Cold, rushing - making you forget. You wrapped your arms tight around his waist and tipped your head a little, looking up at the saturated, pink sky, the stars had started showing faintly and suddenly you realized how much of your life you had missed while chasing the dreams your parents had assigned you to chase.

Your friends would often talk of reckless nights back in university, but you never got to experience those because you were always busy studying to make sure your parents remained proud of you.

But you were now. You were on a mean bike with a drop dead gorgeous man, riding down the highway while the sun set in the background. You felt alive. Slowly, you loosened your arms from around his waist, lifting them away from his body. You lifted your arms upwards, feeling your hands tear through the icy winds and you let out a genuine laugh.

You noticed he slowed down a little when you did so. You let your arms up for some more time before you lowered them and wrapped them around his waist again. You inched closer and pressed your chest to his back, feeling his warmth seep through the many layers of clothing.

“Thank you.” You whispered close to his ear. You knew he heard you even if he didn’t respond right away.

“Wanna see the sunset better?” he asked, barely a second later.

“Yes, please!”

About ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of what seemed like a motel. You got off the bike once he came to a stop and he did too. He helped you take the helmet off and immediately grabbed your hand and ran towards the motel.

You followed, giggling like a kid. “Where are we going?”

“The roof. Come on, quick.”

He answered and led both of you to what seemed to be some sort of fire escape. You climbed the metal stairs as fast as you could, not more than a few steps behind him until you reached the roof. It was filled with empty cans, cigarette butts and what not but it also gave you a view to die for.

The sky had turned orangish by now, the sun was halfway down the horizon and you were mesmerized. You couldn’t look away. The sky darkened with each second, and you felt too much at the same time. You wanted to run. And never come back. You wanted bike rides everyday. You wanted to take the time and admire each sunset like this. You wanted to not worry about anything for a while.

You felt strong arms wrap around you from behind. Then he placed his chin on your shoulder, pressing a sweet kiss to your cheek. “Don’t cry, angel.” Only then did you realize that you had a tear slowly falling down your cheek.

You wiped it away and kept staring at the sky, watched it change colors. Your racing heart calmed down and a certain body heat wrapped around you, comforting you better than any blanket ever could.

You turned in his arms, facing him once the sky turned a darker shade of blue when the sun had set completely. Another tear escaped your eye. He caught this one before it fell down your cheek. He looked down at you with a soft look in his eyes. It almost made your heart hurt.

“I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to marry him. I don’t want any of it.” You whispered, keeping your eyes on his neck, admiring his tattoos through your teary eyes. You couldn’t tell what they were just yet, but they looked incredible on his tan skin.

“Then don’t.” He answered, easily. “Don’t go home right away. Don’t marry him if you don’t want to. Stay.” He whispered the last bit, his metal arm reaching up to cup your face. “You might just be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

You giggled through the tears. “So this is where you bring all the girls?” You asked, your tone much more playful and teasing.

He shook his head, laughing quietly. “I don’t. I don’t even live in this town. I have a family thing I need to attend in a day or two, so I was just passing by. I got a room for a couple of nights and boom, now here we are.”

You nodded slowly. “Here we are.” You whispered back, your eyes flicking down to his lips a couple of times before looking back up into his eyes.

He gave you a faint smile before leaning in for a kiss again, sighing once his lips touched yours like he had been craving it. You wrapped your arms around him, kissing him back. He kissed you recklessly, tugging and biting your lip, allowing his hands to slide up and down your side and he tilted your head to the side, stroking deeper into your mouth with his tongue.

“Let’s go.” He murmured against your lips before kissing them again.

“Where?”

“Downstairs.” He kissed along your jaw until his mouth reached your ear. He gave you a kiss and you visibly trembled in his arms. “It’s my turn to see what you taste like.” He whispered, blunt and hot.

Your face felt really hot, again. And when he pulled away, he had a handsome smirk on his pretty face. You got over the shyness and leaned in to kiss him again, aggressively. He chuckled into your mouth and pulled away before tugging you along as he took the stairs again, leading the two of you downstairs.

The night was properly dark by the time you got to the front of the motel, both of you unable to keep your hands off each other, stopping multiple times to push one another against the wall and make out like there’s no tomorrow.

There were not many people in sight. You could hear murmurs of muffled conversations coming from the restaurant which was attached to the motel, and a group of bikers were having a chat and smoking out in the parking lot but that was all.

He led you to his room, unlocked the door and pulled you inside, both of you giggling and moaning as you kissed like horny teenagers.

He pulled away again, “Oh and, my name’s Bucky. Remember that when you’re moaning later.” He whispered breathlessly against your lips as he slammed the door shut behind the two of you and wrapped his arms around you immediately, pulling you closer as though he needed you like he needed air.

“I’m Y/N. You remember that too.” You moaned into the kiss and shrugged his leather jacket off as quickly as possible, eager to feel his skin on yours. You helped him take his shirt off, tossing it aside carelessly. You briefly let your hands roam around his torso, feeling each indent and firm muscle, your heart racing with each inch of skin you explored.

He unzipped your dress while walking the two of you backwards, and by the time you made it to the queen sized bed you were both left in just your underwear.

Bucky pushed you down on the bed, it was surprisingly soft and comfortable. He was on top of you not even a second later. You whined when he moved to kiss down your neck, nibbling on your skin and leaving dark red marks behind. You wrapped your legs around him, moving your hips against him slowly, grinding on him out of desperation and he chuckled against your skin. “Eager, are we?” he whispered and peppered your neck with soft kisses.

You moaned when his hands reached up to wrap around your breasts, fondling and teasing you through the lacy bra. He moaned against your skin as your fingers slid through his hair and tugged at his roots.

“Bucky…” You dragged his name out, squirming under him as he took his sweet time kissing down your body.

“Hmm?” He acted oblivious as he took your underwear off and tossed them on the floor as he settled himself in between your legs properly. His handsome, perfect face just inches away from your dripping core.

You whined. “I want you, please…”

He chuckled, kissing your inner thighs. “I know, angel. I know.” His warm breath fanned your sensitive skin as he spoke, and he noticed the way the goosebumps erupted all over your skin. He looked up at you for a quick second, scanning your face.

You held your upper body up on your elbows by now, looking down at him with your bottom lip in between your teeth. He sent you a shameless wink before leaning in and kissing your wet folds, his tongue slowly circling around your throbbing clit and licking down, parting your wet folds with ease. He teased your entrance with his tongue and your body felt hotter than earlier.

A pressing need to release formed deep inside you as you felt his tongue stroked your most sensitive parts. “You taste better than I imagined…” Bucky chuckled as he looked up at you and found you with your eyes shut, head thrown back in pleasure.

He grinned to himself, glad that he was the one bringing you such pleasure. He wrapped his arms around your thighs, keeping you in place and close to him. He placed his mouth back on you again, and licked in between your wet folds, making you whine as he tasted you. His touch was slow, pleasurably agonizing. “Please…” you cried out, whimpering and begging.

“Oh?” He taunted. “But I’m not quite done, so don’t you come yet angel.” He whispered against your wet skin. He kissed down all the way to your core, and gently bit your skin, making you hiss in pleasure. You could feel your arousal trickling out of you, one drop at a time. But Bucky didn’t let none of it go to waste, he leaned in and latched his mouth onto your core, sucking and licking and teasing you. Your arousal coated the lower half of his face, but he didn’t mind it one bit.

He watched how you lost control under his touch; legs shaking as he teased your entrance with the tip of his tongue. His hands wrapped around your thighs, securing you in his grip as he pushed his face further into you, making you cry out loud. He had you coming undone all over his mouth in no time.

“That’s a good girl… cum for me, Princess.”

You were gasping for air in no time, your body squirming under his. Bucky kissed his way up your body again. He gave you a brief kiss on the lips then lifted off you for just a moment to get rid of his underwear and grab a condom from the drawer and put it on. Once done, he was hovering over your naked body again.

Bucky’s body settled in between your legs comfortably again, and he leaned in to kiss you on the nose and then down to your lips. You smiled through the kiss as he pulled you even closer. You could feel his thick and hard cock resting against your thighs. He touched you wherever he could; letting his hands linger at your breasts and taking his sweet time; caressing and kissing your skin. His hands slipped in between your legs with ease; caressing your inner thighs as he went.

You moaned into the kiss; his touch was slow, and gentle and enticing but also fiery. He ran his fingers up and down your folds, gathering and smearing your arousal around. He stared into your eyes, his face still dangerously close to yours. “You okay, angel?” he asked. His voice strained and deep, gravelly with lust.

“Yes… please, I need you.” You whispered against his mouth. You were burning up under him.

Bucky pushed his tongue into past your lips while he pushed his erected cock past your tight entrance. You immediately lifted your legs up to wrap them around his waist like earlier. You moaned quietly as he pushed into you. He grunted once he filled you up entirely, and gave you a couple of seconds to adjust. He grabbed both your hands, laced your fingers together with his and pinned your interlaced hands down on the bed, above your head.

He pulled out and pushed himself back into you, and watched in awe how you struggled to keep quiet. He lowered his face again, and leaned into your ear. “It’s okay, angel. Let me hear you.” He whispered, groaning by the end and let go of your hands to hold your body.

He gripped your waist and pushed deeper into you. You heard him gasp and swear under his breath as he rocked into you. Your nails sank into his skin, around his shoulders; which you held onto for dear life as he pounded into you. He kissed you, bit your lips, kissed your open mouth, and shoved his tongue past your lips while he rammed into you; and you never once complained.

Your legs trembled around his waist, he thrust deeper into you, and in the daze he was in, he mumbled right in your ear about how good you felt. The sound of his moans and grunts sent tingles dancing down your spine.

Never in a million years did you ever think that you would find yourself in a motel room, having mind blowing sex with a hottie you met about an hour ago, but here you were. And you loved each moment. Your back arched off the bed as you felt a familiar warmth washing over you. Bucky growled and bit down on your shoulder to keep himself from making any loud noises while he fucked you. He was relentless. And you loved it.

“Cum for me, angel. Come all over my cock…”

Your moans got louder as your walls clenched violently around him, your body shaking as the waves of pleasure washed over you. You gasped, trying to calm your racing heart but he wasn’t done with you yet. Bucky flipped you onto your stomach and pulled you onto your knees by your hips. He kissed the back of your neck.

“More.” He growled against your skin and pushed your face down against the pillows, making your ass stick out for him. He gripped each side of your hips, tightly. He pushed his cock into you without a word said; earning a sinful moan out of you. He groaned and grunted as he filled you up again; your butt cheeks pressing into his pelvic bone as he pounded into you.

You moaned out loud at the new sensation of him rocking into you from behind. Bucky’s hand found its way to your front and he pressed the palm of his hand against your lower abdomen. He liked the rush of excitement which coursed through him each time he felt his cock deep within you.

You felt him quicken his pace. “Fuck…” he moaned.

You tightened around him, and he groaned, pounding into you; growling and mumbling swear words under his breath. You felt the pressure in between your hips grow until you could barely hold back anymore. His other hand reached around and toyed with your folds; his fingers furiously rubbed the skin around your clit and made you tremble and whimper again.

“Bucky… please,” You moaned, craving more and more of him.

With a few more strokes of his thick cock, you felt his thrust becoming irregular, and felt his cock throb against your walls. You tightened around him, feeling the burning hot need to cum grow hotter and hotter inside you until it exploded. You came with a loud moan, gushing all around him. Bucky came right after you; buried deep within you – growling and mumbling swear words under his breath.

His soft kisses are the last thing you remember feeling before you snuggled up to his warm body under the sheets and drifted off to sleep without a single care in the world for the first time in a long time.

---

You laid your head on his bare chest, a thin white sheet barely covering either of you properly. The sun was coming up and you could tell that your phone would be blowing up by now if you hadn’t turned it off the night before. You quickly chased those thoughts away, you didn’t want to think about anyone this morning.

Just Bucky.

You lifted your head up slowly so as not to disturb him but when you looked up you found him staring down at you with a soft smile on his face. “Hi.” You whispered, your voice hoarse and strained.

He chuckled, pushing some of your hair out of your face. “Hey angel. Are you okay? Does anything hurt?” He asked, concern written all over his face for a moment.

You shook your head. “I’m okay.” You lowered your head again, placing your ear right on top of his heart. You let out a sigh. You knew you wouldn’t be able to escape your family forever and your father will track you down and you would have to explain yourself, possibly even marry whoever they ask you to but this right now, last night and this morning - you would cherish that forever.

You lazily ran your fingers up and down Bucky’s tattooed arm wishing for a different reality, while he played with your hair. You gently traced the lines and curves of ink on his skin, some were hard to decipher because they overlapped with the others. Some words you could make out, some you couldn’t. A few of the discreet, smaller tattoos looked like he had done them himself, and their messiness made you giggle. Like the poorly done smiley face on the inside of his wrist, and the fading initials next to them: j.b.b.

You froze. Hang on…

“Bucky?” You felt like you would explode with the amount of emotions and thoughts which rushed inside your head.

“Yes Princess?” You could hear the sleep in his voice.

“What’s your last name?” You asked, anticipation building inside of you and almost choking you. It couldn’t be… could it?

“Barnes. Why?” He answered, looking down at you with confusion all over his face meanwhile you looked like you had seen a ghost.

You closed your eyes and let out a shaky breath. “Let me guess, your real name is James. And your father has a very close friend and fellow businessman named Y/L/N?”

He furrowed his eyebrows at you. “Yes. How did you-,”

You got up and straddled him, pinning him down under you. He didn’t mind the nudity, quite the contrary actually. “Bucky! You’re the guy I’m supposed to marry! You’re James Buchanan Barnes!” You went on to tell him your full name and you watched how the realization hit him just as hard as it hit you.

“Oh…” His smirk faded for a moment as he processed what you had just said, before it formed again. “Well in that case…” He flipped the two of you around and pinned you down under him just like he had last night. “It’s nice to finally meet you, future wife.” He leaned in for another kiss.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #biker!bucky #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes

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